Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina
by Twilight Joltik
Summary: Cosmic guardian Rosalina is threatened by the Star Eaters, so she calls upon the twelve Alchemist Knights to stop them. Lucina, the first to be called is entrusted with the power to manipulate time and the responsibility to find the others before the Star Eaters do. The catch? She and the other Alchemist Knights have no idea how to use their powers. Magical Girl (and boy) AU.
1. Beginning

_**AN- Smash Bros as a Magical Girl story? Sure, why not.**_

_**I do not own anything Nintendo. Just my ideas. Thanks and enjoy. -Twilight Joltik**_

* * *

_Prologue- Stardust_

_The world itself seemed to glow gold. In this place, even the very fabric of time and space had ceased to exist. Only one person would ever see it, a person who would cease to exist very soon now. They could feel this void pulling apart their very being, fracturing what was left of them into pieces. There was hardly a physical form they could hold on to. Soon, all that would be left was intangible memories, and even those were fading. _

_They held on to the only thing they had left: the power that had brought them here, the power to bend reality contained within a single core. It was too much for anyone to bear. That person was glad they'd removed that burden from the universe. The power unleashed back in reality, it was surely enough to split that power in all of time and space, so it never would have been one person's burden in the first place. The horrible power of the stars would be split, two people guarding fractions of its power._

_In this haze, they felt something slip out of their grasp. Part of the power that had cursed that world, they supposed. They felt the most crushing of all of those awful powers vanish. That was for the best. Foresight was far too much a burden to be carried with the rest of them. The power to warp time and the power to warp space alone were too great. With the wish they had given themselves for, those powers would always be separate. _

_The person who stood between time and space felt the last of themselves start to slip away. One memory remained in their grasp: the one they'd so desperately wanted to save. And in that moment, with the last of themselves, someone who very nearly didn't exist made a wish as their consciousness was washed away into the seas of time. _

_"I do not care how impossible it is. I want to meet you again in this new world, no matter what it takes," someone cried with all of the heart they'd lost trying to save someone dear to them._

_They faded into stardust, into waves in the sea of time, into flashes of light from a time that would never come. The power that had brought them there faded as well, scattering, following the wishes that had destroyed it._

This story is that of sixteen Knights, scattered across the cosmos. A story of horrific fates and crushing powers, but also one of great love and flowering hope. But mostly, it is the story of a girl who wanted to protect her family, a boy who wanted to change fate, a beast who wanted to be anything but what he was, and a enigma that wanted to be understood.

* * *

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter One- Beginning_

Lucina sighed as she threw open the front door, stalking into her house. "You alright, Lucy?" her younger brother Morgan called.

She rolled her eyes at his usage of that childish nickname. Glancing over, she saw him seated in front of the television, cell phone in one hand and pen in the other. This was a situation she seemed to find him in frequently lately. "You know, just because Nah offered to help you study for the Algebra final doesn't give you an excuse to slack off," she berated.

His cheeks went slightly red as he put his phone down. "I'm not slacking off! I was totally just about to turn the TV off!" he exclaimed, quickly grabbing the remote and mashing the power button. "See? I hadn't even called her yet!"

Lucina chuckled. "Sure you hadn't. And you certainly weren't trying to ask her if she could come over to 'study' with you in person."

Flushing crimson, Morgan quickly gasped "H-how-?"

"And then planning on asking her if she wanted to get a bite to eat afterwards," Lucina continued.

"B-but-?"

"Without anyone's permission, mind you," she finished, holding back a laugh from the terrified blush on her brother's face.

"Uh…" Morgan sat for a moment before quickly putting his phone to his ear and exclaiming "Call ya back in a sec!"

Lucina stepped over to the couch and put her hand on her brother's shoulder. "Look," she sighed. "Word of advice; it wouldn't kill you to just ask her if she wanted to hang out without using homework as an excuse."

"You can do that?" Morgan sputtered in awe.

"Yes. In fact, it's often preferable to just making up excuses, considering it lets her know you care about her personally, beyond wanting to pass a class," she explained.

The look of dawning realization on Morgan's face was rather amusing, but it made Lucina feel guilty that she hadn't brought this up the first several times he'd made that error. "You need permission first," she added.

The clicking of his phone's keyboard resonated through the room as she started upstairs to her room. She quickly found herself face down on her lilac bedspread, wanting nothing more than to close her eyes and have peace for only a minute. That day had been particularly rough; her history teacher had inadvertently made a fool out of her for raising her hand to ask a question he'd already answered, and then she knew she'd failed spectacularly at the practice exam in biology. Not to mention finals were next week and she still had no clue how she'd pass them. She took solstice in the fact that the weekend was fast approaching, and after that, only one cruel, treacherous week stood between her and the freedom that was summer.

She was lying there for quite a while, or at least long enough to make her feel like she'd fallen asleep, before she heard a sharp rapping on the door. "Lyn told me to come get you; dinner," Morgan called from the other side of the wall. Sighing, she rubbed her eyes and made her way sleepily to the dining table, sitting at her usual place, fiddling with the spaghetti during prayers and not noticing anything until she heard her adoptive mother ask her if she was alright.

"I'm fine," she muttered, raising her head to look at the green-haired lady. "Just tired, stupid finals."

Lyn Andronuts nodded sympathetically at her foster child. "Remember, six days and it's over. Think you can live?"

"Yeah," Lucina stated. After a moment of slightly awkward silence, she asked "So, Morgan, how'd it go with Nah?"

Red tinting his cheeks, Morgan tried very hard to suppress the smile creeping up on his lips. "Alright, I guess. She said she couldn't come tonight, but she said she'd go see a movie with me tomorrow night!"

"See, next time you won't listen to me, I'll just remind you that I helped you get a date with the girl of your dreams," Lucina teased.

Morgan flushed completely scarlet. "Wha-? I-I don't have a crush on her! Not at all!"

Lucina smirked. "Oh really? You don't like little miss super-smart-really-pretty-and-nice-and-smells-good-dragon-girl?"

"Could have fooled me," Lyn remarked.

The whole table burst into laughter, excluding Morgan, who simply buried his face in his hands, muttering something that sounded like "Did I really say all that out loud?"and Lucina was reminded once again why she liked Lyn so much. She was an adult, and good at being one when she tried, but she still laughed and joked as if part of her hadn't ever grown up.

However, as much as she liked her, Lucina still couldn't think of her as her mother. Her foster father was always either away or busy with some project, so he didn't count either. Though Lyn did a venerable job, the fact was she had no true parents. She scarcely discussed this with Morgan, but she could tell he shared her sentiments. She wasn't ever sure he remembered their real parents; they'd died when he wasn't even two years old. She could almost remember them, if she tried, but they still felt distant and the memories only made her feel more alone.

Lost in thought, she finished her meal with no remarks beyond a "yes" or "sure", then went straight up to her room to study. Her mind struggled to stay bound to the page. She tried to force herself to concentrate on the words of the textbook and the problems of the study guides, but it drifted. She decided to give up and go to sleep after a few hours, when she found she'd declared the eighth queen of Akaneia to be named 'Potato Chips'. Her covers curled around her as she closed her eyes and felt conscious thought float away from her.

She quickly found herself pulled back to reality by the impact of something dropping itself squarely on her forehead. Letting out a small cry of pain and shock, her eyes shot open as she sat up and glanced about her bed, trying to find the incriminating object. A small blueish-purple device was sitting between the pillows and the cover, glinting in the moonlight. "Wha-?" Lucina muttered as she took the object in her hand. The indigo seemed to be a stone of some sort, silver backing it and criss-crossing across its surface in thin strands. A cord was attached to it. Was it some sort of necklace?

Suddenly, it began to pulse brightly, filling the room with bursts of cobalt light. An hourglass symbol was marked deep inside the pendant by a white glow. Lucina decided then and there that this was an odd, fatigue-triggered fever dream. Therefore, it did not faze her when a small, yellow, pudgy star-shaped creature burst into her room from the window.

* * *

**_AN- Yes, I realize the majority of this chapter is Fire Emblem centric, but other series will appear in prominent roles. Just, bear with me. In case you haven't played Awakening, Morgan is the main character's son and Nah is a half-dragon (Manakete) girl. While not explicitly stated, Lyn's husband is Jeff from Earthbound simply because I wanted the parents to be assist trophies and Jeff was one of the few I knew enough about to write for. _**

**_Also, the prologue was added later, considering how spoiler-y it is for later chapters. Still kind of hard to understand, but it'll make sense eventually. Thank you for reading! -Twilight Joltik_**


	2. Luma

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Two- Luma_

A small, star-shaped creature stood before Lucina, who was wondering where this lucid dream of hers was going.

"Miss," exclaimed the creature. "The very cosmos are being drained of their power by forces from beyond this world! Our Lady was left no choice but to scatter the powers of the Alchemist's Spirits across Time and Space."

Lucina found humor in how heavy-handed her subconscious was with exposition. And the fact that she felt the need to rationalize a dream with exposition in the first place. "Alright, what do I have to do? Hold this pendant thing and say some words and I'll transform into some sort of magical girl with an extremely short skirt or something?" she asked.

The creature blinked its small black eyes and sputtered in shock. "Our Lady said you wouldn't be so quick to comprehend our plight," it stated. "But you will need to use the power of the Alchemy Core to help me. You see," it flushed scarlet. "I may have been pursued by a Star Eater. You'll need to activate it to defeat it so it doesn't kill me."

"How do I activate it?"

"Put it on and call out its name," it explained hastily, glancing out the window anxiously.

"Which is?"

"Time."

Lucina pulled the necklace on and stood beside her bed, calling out "Time" forcefully. A blue glow engulfed her, and she suddenly found her vision obstructed by something heavy and metal framing her eyes. Giving the mirror on her wall a sideways glance, she saw a pointed mask covering her face. A dark blue tunic and a red and blue cape had replaced her pajamas and her hair was pinned up. "What exactly is this?" she asked.

"The armor of the ancient Alchemist's Knights. You see…"

The explanation was cut off by a loud crash outside. The star-shaped creature jumped as it glanced out the window. Lucina followed its gaze to see a blue, metallic, spider-like beast outside the window. Its red eyes seemed to be scanning the ground as it hovered about. "Miss," the star creature called. "You need to defeat that before it finds me."

Lucina nodded and opened the window. She glanced down; a small ways to the next roof, but she knew she'd be able to make it if she willed the dream's reality to allow it. From the window, she leapt across the gap, but found the star creature had grabbed her cape to prevent her from falling. "Be careful!" it cried.

"Yeah, how do I attack this?" she asked. The creature nodded and put two of its appendages together, making a small energy ball appear. A silver and gold blade burst from it, which Lucina took in her hand. She eyed the creature. "Hey," she cried, trying to attract it to her rooftop perch. "Over here!"

It whirred around and charged for her. "You need to call out an attack; try 'freeze'!" the star advised.

"Freeze!" Lucina called. The monster stopped moving very suddenly, almost eerily, as if time itself had stopped. However, the star creature seemed unaffected. Lucina dashed towards the monster, but found it out of reach from her sword. "How do I blast it?" she asked.

"You can't; Time doesn't have any offensive capabilities. You'll need to wait for time to restart and it to get closer to cast it again."

Lucina scoffed. Just like her to dream up such a silly superpower for herself. Time soon resumed and the creature came charging at her. It was moving at a frankly blistering speed. "Freeze!" she quickly called out again, making the creature stop moving only inches from her. If she hadn't been dreaming, she would have been horrified at the close call, but now she only slashed it rapidly with the weapon. It hit only hard metal, seeming to leave no wounds.

Jumping out of the way, she saw it start to turn towards her once more and charge up some sort of energy blast before she called out once more and it stopped moving. "Are my attacks even hurting it?" she asked.

"Try hitting that Flash Cannon attack back at it," suggested the star. "And cast 'slow' so you'll have time to do so."

Lucina nodded and jumped backwards. The second the creature resumed, she called out "Slow!" and its attack started hurdling towards her rather slowly. "Hitting it back"; would that work? She wasn't sure, but, of course, logic was meaningless, so it probably would. She slashed at the silver orb as it neared her, and it sped up as it flew back in the monster's face. The smoke that settled on its glinting surface was a telltale sign it had worked.

It charged at her once more, causing her to call out "Slow!" once more to allow her time to rush out of the way. However, it changed directions to follow her midair and started to charge for her as time sped up once more. She tried to cast it once more, but speed failed her and it flew barely past her, tearing the sleeve of her costume.

Lucina grimaced in pain. Something scarlet was oozing out of her slight wound. "H-how?" she muttered. "I thought you couldn't be hurt in dreams. Is this not-"

The star creature flew over to her. "What, do you think this is some sort of game?" it cried in indignation. "Of course it's not a dream!"

How was this not a dream? This sounded like a cartoon. None of this was plausible; people didn't just get woken up by odd creatures and told they were going to save the world with ridiculous powers and costumes. However, the bright light emanating from the hands of the blue creature said otherwise. She dashed back to ready her sword to parry it and cast Slow, but an energy beam started hurdling towards her before she could speak a single letter. She prayed it was some sort of dream, bracing herself for the attack, but the star creature flew in front of the beam, a golden energy shield forming in front of it.

The energy bounced back onto the monster and it quickly crumbled into dark dust. However, the star fell out of the air as well. Lucina dashed to catch it in her arms, noting that it was covered in charcoal black wounds. "Thank you," she stated. "Are you alright?"

"Certainly not," it muttered. "That was lethal."

Lucina started to apologize; her ignorance had led to its death, but it cut her off. "Quick, before I go, I must tell you what you must do!"

Several more pendants, differently colored versions of her own materialized, floating vaguely above it. "These cores. You must find their bearers; the other Alchemist's Knights. They will guide you to their bearers, glowing brighter the closer you are to them."

"What are their names?" Lucina asked frantically. "Their attacks?"

Growing more distant with every syllable, it muttered "They are fire, ice, sky, air, …metal, …magic…, li-"

It became silent and limp, and the pendants fell onto its body. Tears blurred her vision as it dissolved into glowing golden dust that floated into the sky. The pendants fell into her hands, which she tightened in fear of dropping the devices. As the insanity registered in her mind, she realized she had no way to get back into her open window. Sighing, she located the gutter pipe and tore off her cape to brace herself climbing down it.

She located her brother's first floor bedroom window and rapped on the glass. As a small terrified scream came from the room, she saw hands reach under the blinds and open the window. As she climbed in, her brother's face, at first disdainful, turned to complete confusion. "What the heck were you doing and what are you dressed up as?" he asked. "Ten seconds to answer or I'm calling Lyn."

Taking a deep breath, she explained the night's events rapid fire. "Well, I got woken up by a star creature that gave me a magic pendant that gave me powers over time and a weird costume, and then I battled a huge monster over on the rooftop, and then the star died trying to save me, so now I have to find the other people who can use the magic pendants. Any questions?"

"What?" Morgan stammered.

"It sounds crazy, but I'm your sister and I would never lie to you unless cookies were involved. Which they aren't, so please, as crazy as I'm sounding right now, don't call any form of nuthouse to come lock me up."

Slowly, he nodded. "Okay, I guess I do have a girlfriend who can transform into a dragon, so it's not entirely impossible. Just, please explain it to me again, but this time more slowly."

"Okay," she sighed in relief. "But first, I need to figure out how to deactivate this transformation."

* * *

_**AN- The evil giant metal spider monster was a Metagross, BTW. Just 'cause. Also, Lucina is best Sailor Senshi and the star was a Luma.**_

_**So, I thought having a chapterly question would be fun, so here's this chapter's:**_

_How would you react if a Luma came into your bedroom in the middle of the night telling you that you were a magical girl (or boy) that had to save the cosmos and kill a Metagross? __**I think I would first pinch myself to make sure it wasn't a dream, and then I'd ask so many questions that the Metagross would squish my house before I transformed. **_

_**If you people don't like chapterly questions, I won't do any more. So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	3. Friends

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Three- Friends_

Lucina woke up to the shrill screeching of her alarm clock. She groaned; she'd be worthless at school that day, considering she'd stayed up for an hour trying to figure out how to deactivate her new superpowers. "Extinguish" had been the proper phrase, something she'd added to the notebook Morgan gave her. "It'll help you keep track of things before you forget them!" he'd explained. She had written down all she could remember the star telling her about her powers.

As she got ready, she noted the pendants on her bedside table. She took the indigo one she'd use the night before, placing it on her neck, and set out the rest on her bed. She took a pen and the notebook and attempted to figure out the name of each one.

_Indigo=Time_, she quickly jotted down. The others it'd managed to tell her before its death were Fire, Ice, Sky, Air, Metal, Magic, and something starting with an L. There were twelve pendants, or cores as the star had called them, in total, and she knew the names of seven of them. They were each different colors, so perhaps the names corresponded to the colors somehow? Time wasn't something she would have thought to be indigo, but it was an abstract concept, unlike the others which, save for magic, were things that usually had associated colors.

The grey one was most likely metal, so she jotted _Grey=Metal?_ down. Though two of the pendants were red, the one tending a bit more towards orange seemed to be more fire-y, causing her to add _Red-Orange=Fire? _ to her list. She would have thought Sky would be a pale blue and Ice a lighter one, but the only blues to be seen were a mid blue and a light blue-green.

A knock at her door made her contemplation turn to dust as she called "Come in!".

Morgan flung the door open and immediately launched into speech. "Okay, I was thinking about those power things, and I thought if Fire and Air were two of them, then Earth and Water probably are too," he suggested rapidly.

"Perhaps, but there are only two blue pendants and I already think Sky and Ice most likely occupy them," she stated.

"Maybe it's Ice instead of Water?"

She wrote_ Earth _next to the other potential powers. "Okay, I still have nine powers to place. Any ideas?"

The eventually decided that Ice likely was the darker blue, while the blue-green was Sky. The golden pendant was designated as Earth, and they agreed that the white was likely air. Tentatively, they marked the purple as Magic, and the matter remained of what the remaining were. The L-word, they decided, was most likely Light, which they assigned to the yellow. Of the three remaining; green, dark red, and pink, green seemed easy to place as a plant power, and pink was possibly some sort of love or psychic power, so they were marked as _Plant?_ and _Love or Mind?,_ respectively.

"Okay, so what about the darker red?" Morgan asked.

Lucina stared at it for a moment. "I don't know. It kind of looks like blood, so maybe a mind control or death power?" she suggested.

"What would we call that? Mind again? Death?"

They stayed silent for a moment before Morgan gave a small giggle. "Y'know," he snickered. "It kind of looks like a giant pomegranate seed. We could always call it Pomegranate power."

Lucina rolled her eyes, but she glanced at the pendant once more. "Yeah, it does kind of look like pomegranate," she remarked, putting _Pomegranate_, _Death_, and _Mind_ down as possible names for the final core.

Glancing at her clock once more, Lucina jumped, shoving the pendants into her pocket. "Crap," she hissed. "We've better run."

Hurdling down the stairs, Lucina ran into the kitchen. She grabbed a banana and wolfed it down while shoving a piece of bread in the toaster. Morgan hastily shoved cereal and milk into a bowl as Lucina ran back upstairs to put her papers into her schoolbag. The two finished their breakfast at breakneck speed before rushing out the door.

Running at a blistering pace, the pair made it to the bus stop with less than a minute to spare. A blonde girl gaped at them, while a girl with long dark hair snickered. Casting a glare towards her, Lucina stepped onto the arrived bus, sitting next to her friend Cynthia. "Hiya!" she greeted brightly. "How are ya?"

"Fine," Lucina stated. Should she mention the events of the previous night to her?

"Cool," Cynthia continued. "I'm fine too! I started reading this really cool manga last night and I'm already on the fifth book! Can you believe that?"

"How nice," Lucina muttered. She suddenly realized that Cynthia was probably the most likely out of her friends to believe her, but that she might be a bit jealous of Lucina's powers as well. After all, the girl had read every Magical Girl manga under the sun, and involving her might complicate things for the both of them.

Cynthia continued on for a while about her new manga, but Lucina spaced out, only injecting a 'mm-hmm' or a 'nice' when nessisary. The bus soon arrived at their school and they got off, Cynthia continuing their largely one-sided conversation until they had to part to go to their lockers.

Lucina drifted through the first half of the day, not registering hardly anything the teachers said. Yes, finals were coming soon, but they hardly mattered when compared to saving the cosmos, right? However, she was fairly certain her teachers wouldn't accept that excuse, so she feigned attention the best she could.

When lunchtime arrived, she found herself feeling a bit guilty about her decision to keep her powers under wrap. However, between Cynthia bombarding Gerome with the details of her new manga and Inigo flirting with nearly every girl to pass their table, she found herself with an excuse to keep fairly quiet; she wouldn't be able to get in a word regardless. She took this as an opportunity to try to think what sorts of attacks the other cores might grant as she wolfed down the nearly digestible cafeteria food. However, she was soon asked her opinion on something or other by Gerome, causing her to laugh awkwardly as she blurted "Sure!" without a second thought.

"I was asking when you would be able to have a study session with us this weekend," he berated dryly.

"You alright, Lucina?" Inigo asked. "You seem sorta out of it."

"Yeah!" Cynthia added. "You were kinda spacey this morning too!"

A lump formed in the back of Lucina's throat as she choked out a half-lie. "I just stayed up late last night, that's all. I'm just a bit tired."

"Ah. Want me to buy you a soda?" Inigo asked with a wink.

"I'll be fine," she sighed. "But I don't think I could do a study session this weekend."

"Why not?" Cynthia pouted.

She quickly searched for something that would make more sense than "I've gotta save the cosmos.". "Someone's gotta make sure Morgan passes Algebra," she lied.

Cynthia frowned. "Okay, fine…"

However, Inigo looked at her, eyebrows raised. "Didn't you say that lucky kid got a chick to help him?" he asked.

Gulping, she quickly wove her deceptive web further. "Er, considering how he is, I don't think she'll be able to get much tutoring in," she chuckled.

Her friends accepted this, but she could tell they might not have believed her completely. Lunch ended graciously soon, and she began to drift back into her spaced-out routine of feigning interest once more. When the school bell struck at three, she let out a loud sigh of relief and started towards the bus before any of her friends could question her further. Of course, she spotted Gerome heading in her general direction in the halls, so she had to quickly duck into the ladies' room before he could notice her. She waited a moment for him to pass. The fluorescent lights flickered and she saw a faint glow coming from her pocket. Taking the pendants out, she gasped as she saw the red and blue cores shining with light. Were more Alchemist Knights near?

Dashing out of the bathroom, she held a pendant in each hand and noticed them grow a bit duller as she neared the exit. She quickly turned back, following the slightly increasing glow as she turned down halls she barely recognized until she found a mostly empty classroom where two boys were idly chatting as one with messy dark blue hair, not unlike her brother's, packed his bag and the other, a redhead, searched for a book on the bookshelf. The cores both shone with enough light to tint even the sunlit classroom with violet, and the two boys turned to see its source.

Lucina breath caught as the redhead faced her. She knew him; they had often played together in their youth, considering Lyn was a close friend of his father's. "Roy," she called. The familiar boy opened his mouth, as if to say something, but no words came out. "And, um, whoever you are," the blue haired boy looked rather confused. "I need to talk to you two for a minute."

* * *

_**AN- Yay! More Fire Emblem! Actually, not a single character mentioned in this chapter wasn't from a Fire Emblem game, save for the Luma. The girls at the bus stop were Noire and Severa, if you care. And I probably just totally gave away who the other boy at the end was, but I guess it wasn't unobvious, so I don't feel bad. :P Pinkie Pie Swear; this story will have characters from other things. There will just be a lot of Fire Emblem characters, as the majority of the main characters happen to hail from them. And by majority, I mean, like, four or five of them. **_

_**So, chapterly question time! **__Do you like the fact that Lucina has friends outside of the __Sailor Senshi __Alchemist Knights? __**Personally, I think it makes it feel like she has a life outside of her new duty, but I'd like to know what you think! Also, do you care if I designate the parents of the kids from Awakening? In case anyone cares, Cynthia's father is Gaius, Gerome's is Stahl, Inigo's is Lon'qu, Noire's is Libra, and Severa's is Kellam, but I can make them shipping-neutral if you'd like. **_

_**So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	4. Roy

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Four- Roy_

Lucina tried her best to explain everything to the two. She tried to cover everything from the cores to the monster from the previous night to the death of the star that had tried to explain everything to her. And she didn't blame them for dismissing her so easily; she would have done the same, given the circumstances.

"Lucina, this is ridiculous. What, exactly do you think this silly prank is going to accomplish?" Roy questioned, a dull, unamused glare in his eyes.

The other boy let out a pained chuckle. "Sorry, I don't really do role-playing," he apologized curtly.

Lucina sighed. How could she prove herself? As they started to walk out of the classroom, she quickly called them back with a "Wait! I- I know it sounds crazy, but I can prove it!". Roy continued out the door, but the other boy whirred back around. Lucina placed the two pendants on a desk and rummaged through her pockets for the indigo one she'd used last night. Putting it on, she called out "Time!" and found herself back in the odd costume that came with her powers.

"How did you do that?" asked the blue-haired boy.

A smug smile crept up on Lucina's lips. "That's not all," she muttered. She grabbed one of the books from the shelf Roy had been searching through and tossed it into the air, quickly calling out "Freeze!" as it began to descend.

The flabbergasted sputters coming from the blue-haired boy were enough to beckon Roy back in. The redhead let out a strained, one-noted laugh as he poked the levitating book. "You can freeze time?" he questioned, mouth ajar.

"Yes," Lucina stated softly. "Do you believe me now?"

Roy extended his hand to her as the book fell onto the floor with a dull thud. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you before," he apologized. "But I'd be glad to join you."

"Yeah, sorry," muttered the blue-haired boy. "That was actually really cool. So, what do we need to do- er, Lucina, right?"

"Yes, and you are-?"

"Ike," he stated. "So, what now?"

She hastily handed the red core to Roy and the blue to Ike. Their glows amplified as a white triangle appeared in each one. "We should figure out how to use these," she stated. However, as she saw a few students passing by the door, not glancing their way, something occurred to her. "But maybe we should discuss this somewhere a bit more private. Could you maybe come to my house later?"

"Yeah, sure," Ike agreed. "Wait, where is it?"

"Fourth house to the left on Thoron. Just come when you can, " Lucina answered. She muttered "Extinguish" and started to leave, but her breath caught upon seeing the time on a clock on the wall. "Darn it!" she cried. "I'm so sorry, I must have made you guys miss your buses too."

"It's fine," Roy reassured her. "Don't worry about it."

Lucina apologized once more as she dashed out of the classroom, wondering how she would get home.

Luckily, Cynthia was standing in front of the school, waiting for her father to pick her up. "Hey, Lucina!" she greeted cheerily. "Don't you usually ride the bus?"

"Um, I missed it," she admitted, cheeks burning crimson. "D-do you think your father could drive me home? I-I mean, if it's too much trouble, I can just walk, but…"

Cynthia laughed brightly. "Oh, you know my dad; he's fine with pretty much anything! I'm sure he'd be glad to bring you home. And if he isn't," a devious gleam materialized in her eyes. "I'll make him do it anyways. I mean, I'm not gonna let my best friend walk five miles in this heat!"

Cynthia's father arrived not too long afterwards. "Sir, if it's quite alright, um," Lucina stated, attempting to be as polite as possible.

"Lucina missed her bus," Cynthia interrupted. "Can we drive her home?"

"Yeah, sure," her father agreed.

"Thank you, sir," Lucina stated as she climbed into the back seat.

Cynthia's father laughed. "Kid, for the millionth time, 'Gaius' is fine."

Lucina flushed red again. "Sorry, s-, I mean Gaius."

The loud laughter of Cynthia's father punctuated the roaring of the car's engine as it sped out of the school's parking lot. Lucina attempted to ask him to mind the speed limit, but it fell upon deaf ears, as neither Gaius nor Cynthia seemed to care. However, she noticed he was very quick to slow down whenever nearing a police officer, as if he'd memorized the locations of them.

Cynthia attempted to make small talk, but Lucina whipped out her phone, claiming she was texting her brother and telling him not to worry. That was half-true, at least. She had hastily sent a message to her brother; _Missed bus. Will explain later._ but she was more concerned with making sure Cynthia didn't ask any questions about why she had missed the bus. Luckily, they arrived at her home in record time and she hastily called out "Thank you!" as she ran to the door, sticking her keys in the door and dashing inside.

"So, explanation?" Morgan asked, running up to his sister.

"I think I found two more Alchemist Knights," she stated. "The cores started glowing, and reacted in their presence, so I told them to come over later so we could figure out what to do next."

"Nice," Morgan cried. "Looks like we'll be able to figure this all out after all! But, can't this wait until tomorrow?"

"Fate of the cosmos, remember?" Lucina berated.

Morgan looked down, guilt in his eyes. "Yeah, but I can't just stand Nah up. I don't want her to think I don't care about her."

Lucina sighed. "I understand. Go on ahead, I'll fill you in on anything we figure out."

"Awesome!" Morgan exclaimed. "Can't wait to hear about it!"

Morgan then sprinted off to his room, leaving Lucina in the living room. She placed her book bag next to the couch and sat down, pulling the notebook Morgan had given her out of it.

Next to _Red-Orange=Fire __and __Blue= Ice? _she wrote Roy and Ike, respectively. Perhaps they could help her think up some attacks for their powers? And if she had gotten their designation incorrect, they could certainly assist with finding the correct ones. She suddenly thought of something that would be rather helpful, and quickly pulled out her phone and searched through her contacts until she found the one marked _Roy Pherae_. She texted him a quick message; _Do you have Ike's number?_.

A few moments passed and her phone dinged with his response. _No, sorry__,_ he'd said.

_Are you not friends with him?_, she asked in response.

_No_, was his response. _He's just in my seventh period class and wanted to know something he'd missed on the study guide._

_Weird coincidence, then? I mean, us all going to the same school and you both being in the same place at the same time?_

_I guess._

_Do you think the others live here, then?_

_Maybe. We should talk about this when we get there. I'll be there in half an hour, I think. _

Lucina suddenly remembered that she hadn't asked if she could have anyone over, and she knew Lyn would be irritated to find she'd invited people over without permission. What excuse could she use for this? 'School project' wouldn't work; it was too late in the year. Perhaps 'study group', then? No, she would probably not understand why her study partners were someone she rarely spoke with outside of gathering of Lyn's friends and a boy she'd never met. Or she could just try to explain the situation to Lyn; that was an option.

She quickly got up and knocked on Morgan's door. "Hey," she asked. "Do you think we should tell Lyn about this?"

He cried "Come in!" and, upon opening the door, Lucina saw he was on the phone and had practically his entire closet laid out on his bed. "On phone," he mouthed.

"Yeah, do you really think that random band I've never heard of shirt is a bad idea?", Morgan questioned into his phone. Lucina sighed and threw one of his obscure sci-fi movie reference shirts at him before walking back out.

"Thanks for your help!" she yelled back at the room, sarcasm edging in her tone. She sighed and sat back on the couch, deciding to make an executive decision and tell Lyn about her predicament. She was the closest thing she had to a parent, after all, and she might be able to provide some helpful insight.

She heard someone fiddling with the doorknob and rushed to the door, trying to prepare her explanation to Lyn. However, she instead found Ike at the door, holding a rather large stick that looked as if it had been ripped straight from a tree. "Lucina, I think there' s a bit of a problem," he stated coolly. However, as a loud roar came from behind him and he jumped, Lucina became stricken with fear.

"What-?" she stepped outside and peered towards the roar to see a large, green and black beast. "Crap."

* * *

_**AN- Good news! I played the first few chapters of the fan translation of Roy's game, so I should have at least some idea what I'm doing here. Also, more Fire Emblem! Yay! I'm looking forwards to using Ike and Roy, and I think you can guess who else we'll be seeing. ;)**_

_**So, chapterly question! Would you tell your friends if you were in Lucina's situation? Personally, I don't think I would, but what do you think? Also, what should Ike and Lucina's surnames be? I'm thinking Crimea and Ylisse, but I want options. **_

_**So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	5. Ike

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Five- Ike_

Lucina started to panic. Another beast? Was it one of those "Star Eaters" that had been pursuing the star? How could she fight it?

"Hey, sorry to interrupt your very important daydreaming, but we kind of need to figure out how to stop that thing from destroying the city!" Ike snapped.

"Right," Lucina muttered. "Time!"

She transformed and reached to the sword sheath at her side. "Okay, so how do I do that?" Ike asked.

"Put on that pendant I gave you and try yelling 'Ice'," Lucina commanded. She then added a "Freeze!" to make sure the monster didn't kill them while they figured out what to do.

"Ice!" Ike cried, mimicking Lucina. Nothing happened.

Lucina felt her stomach churn. "Um, air?" she suggested, wildly trying to remember the other names for the cores and cursing the fact that she didn't have her notebook on her. "Sky?"

The green and black beast, which Lucina more clearly saw the upright dinosaur-like appearance of from this distance, began to move once more. "Air, Sky!" Ike attempted. The core remained inert.

"Freeze!" she called again, getting more desperate. "Um, one second, I'll just run inside and get the notebook and my phone."

"A notebook and a phone are supposed to fight off that thing?" Ike asked flatly.

"I wrote a bunch of stuff about the cores down in a notebook," Lucina explained as she dashed inside. "And I can call Roy." She quickly grabbed the notebook and phone from the couch and ran back outside to find time had resumed. "Freeze!" she cast once more.

She quickly picked up her phone and typed _Hurry up giant monster attacking _in the device, sending it to Roy. However, the screen didn't respond to any of her actions. Did technology, perhaps also fall prey to her time-stopping? "Darn it!" she muttered. "Can you fend it off while I text him?"

Ike nodded. "Yeah, sure. But I'll need this," he replied, grabbing the sword out of her hands and dropping the tree branch. She sighed and waited for the beast to start moving and her ally to dash towards it to retype her message. Sending it, she glanced back towards Ike, who seemed only slightly terrified.

"Freeze!" she called out again, dashing towards the battle. "Okay, we need to figure out how to activate your core. Here," she stated as she handed him the notebook.

Ike flipped it open. "Do any of these names make sense?" he asked after scanning the page. "I mean, metal, magic, death; what kind of powers are those? The only ones that really make any sense are ice, air and fire-"

He was cut off by Lucina's gasp. The blue pendant around his neck had flashed with light once more, the triangle becoming visible again for a brief moment. "It reacted! But what-?"

"Maybe it was fire?" he suggested, and the pendant shone again. "But why would the fire one be blue?"

"I don't know, but try it!" Lucina exclaimed.

"Fire!" Ike called. The core burst with blue light and enveloped him, ebbing away to reveal his attire had been replaced with a dark blue tunic and white pants with a tattered red and tan cape and dark green headband. Glancing at his clothing, he snickered. "Why does it have a cape?"

The beast started to move once more, and Lucina cast "Freeze" once more. "Okay, so fire, what sort of attack names would that have?"

"Um, flame, burn, flare," he suggested.

"Try yelling them!"

"Flame! Burn! Flare!" On the final one, blue flames spat out of the core and directly in front of Ike. Lucina had to jump back quickly to avoid them. He turned to the beast and cast it once more as time resumed again. It jumped back briefly, but seemed fairly unfazed by the attack.

"Lucina, it's not doing anything!" Ike yelled. "Freeze time again or something!"

"It might stop Roy from getting here," she pointed out.

"It didn't affect him earlier," he retorted, narrowly dodging a slash from the beast.

"It might have some sort of range thing, or-"

Dodging a sweep of its tail, Ike sighed. "Maybe next time we should figure out what to do before fighting a monster."

"That would be nice," Lucina replied, dashing to his side. "Can I have my sword back now?"

He handed it to her before yelling "Flare!" once more. Lucina ran at the thing, slashing it's body, but she felt stone behind her blade.

"I don't think our attacks are doing anything," Lucina observed. "Any other ideas?"

"Hold it off until Roy gets here and hope his power will actually do something?" Ike suggested.

"Yeah." Lucina agreed. She jumped back, sword held in front of her at ready. The beast whirred around and started lumbering towards her, while Ike took off and stood several feet away, at an angle with its line of sight. It continued after her, and she suddenly realized something very odd about this. Much like the beast last night, it was not targeting any buildings, only herself and Ike. They had been after the star, so perhaps they aimed to eliminate them as they had it. But why weren't they being seen by anyone else; it was, after all, a populated neighborhood.

She was snapped out of her thought by a orange energy charging in the beast's mouth. She quickly cast "Slow!" and ran out of the way. The attack hit the street, speeding up as it did so, and she quickly noticed the lack of any signs of damage on the asphalt.

She didn't have any time to ponder its meaning, as she found herself dodging another blast, this time some dark purple wave. It sent another towards Ike, who barely dodged it.

"Yeah, that's a giant monster," someone called from a ways away. Lucina turned to see Roy dashing towards the battle, the red core gleaming in his hand.

"Freeze!" Lucina cast once more. She and Ike ran to meet their ally. "Okay, put that pendant on and call out 'ice'," she instructed.

"Why?"

"It'll activate its powers or something," Ike explained hastily, before asking "Why would that one be ice?"

"If fire is blue, I think we can just throw logic out the window," Lucina stated.

"Alright," Roy agreed, throwing the pendant around his neck and calling out "Ice!". Red light enveloped him briefly as a downwards-facing triangle shone in the core. It vanished to reveal his clothing had changed as theirs had, a blue tunic with a cape, along white pants, blue boots, armor around his chest and shoulders, and a blue headband. "So, what do I do now?"

"Um, call out some sort of attack, er, maybe blizzard or frost?" Lucina suggested.

"Blizzard!" Roy called, a pale pink flurry of wind and ice shot towards the beast as time resumed. It hit it, and it most certainly flinched from the attack. "Frost!" he attempted again, dashing towards the beast. Lucina cast Freeze once more, and though the second command did nothing, Roy cast Blizzard once more and made the beast noticeably off balance once it began to move again.

"One more hit should do it," Ike cried as he ran towards it. "Flare!" he called. The blue flames hit the beast, which quickly evaporated into the same black dust the other one had turned into the previous night.

Lucina laughed with joy and relief. "Alright, we beat it!"

"And we figured out what we were doing, kind of," Ike added. "That's a plus."

"So, what now?" Roy asked.

Lucina glanced back at her house. Lyn had still not arrived, making her wonder just how much time that fight had taken up. She was going to have to tell her of this, but it might help to figure out what she was doing first. "We should find a safe place to train and figure out what other attacks we have," she stated.

"Sounds good," Ike agreed. "I'm sure there's some sort of abandoned parking lot or somethi-"

He was cut off by a loud, mechanical-sounding sputter and a bright blue glow. They instinctively glanced up, seeing some sort of large portal above them. A dark purple substance of some sort started to pour out of it, collecting into some sort of blob as it came out. It started to churn and flicker, while Lucina, Ike, and Roy backed away from it.

"What is that thing?" Lucina questioned aloud.

"Whatever it is, I don't think it's a good thing," Ike remarked. The purple blob started to grow larger and longer as it floated into the air.

"Blizzard!" Roy shouted, sending an icy blast towards the forming beast. As it hit, the creature quickly turned from an indistinct blob into some sort of black draconic beast in an instant, one that was very long and snake-like. Roy repeated his attack, panic edging into his voice, but the attack didn't seem to phase the creature, who charged for them. Ike attempted a Flare, but the blue flames seemed to do as little as the ice before it.

"Freeze!" Lucina commanded in panic. However, the creature didn't slow down. Grabbing her allies by the wrist, she tried to dash away as the monster let out a loud roar. "Nothing's working! What do we do?"

"You have time powers, couldn't you warp us away or something?" Roy frantically suggested.

"Warp?" Lucina repeated, raising her voice to be heard above the dragon's shrieks. Suddenly, an indigo glow came from her pendant and a circle appeared beneath her feet. White light shot up from it, enveloping her and her friends.

Lucina tried to blink the light from her eyes, but found spots in her vision as she attempted to focus. It seemed to be no longer warm and sunny, but cold and overcast. Feeling the grip on one of her wrists slacken, she heard Ike gasp. "What happened?" she heard Roy ask.

"I think I learned a new attack," Lucina remarked as casually as she could. "I don't know where we are, but it's somewhere else."

* * *

_**AN- Yay! Cliffhanger! And long battle chapter! I promise next chapter will be less action and more story. Also, the first monster was a Tyranitar and the second is Gloomtail from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, in case you were wondering. So yay, not all Pokémon! And I feel I should explain why Roy has ice powers, but that would involve spoilers, so I'm just going to say this; Fire Emblem Wiki is a beautiful place where you can learn things about these characters. Like why Roy has ice powers. In other news, I watched both episodes of the Fire Emblem Anime, and I highly recommend it (it's on YouTube). Also, I decided that Lucina and Ike will be Lucina Ylisse and Ike Ragnell.**_

_**So, chapterly question! Who do you want to see as other Alchemist Knights? This won't have any bearing on the story; I already have them all set out, but I'm curious as to what you all think. **_

_**So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	6. Warp

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Six- Warp_

Lucina eyed their new surroundings. They appeared to be in some sort of alleyway, crammed between two buildings made of brick. It was humid and damp, as if the dark clouds overhead had just stopped inflicting their watery wrath upon the world. The street, however, was made of some sort of stone brick rather than concrete. "We should look around," Roy stated, twisting free of Lucina's grasp and walking towards the main street. Lucina let go of Ike's hand and followed the redhead.

As soon as the three entered the street, Lucina noticed something very distinctly different about this place. A woman that walked by them was wearing a rather odd dress, one that reached far below her knees. A man passed soon after, wearing some sort of tunic. "This place is weird," Ike observed. "Everyone here looks like they're going to one of those reenactment things."

Those words made something click in Lucina's head. "Considering my power is Time, perhaps Warp doesn't warp you to another place, but another time?" she suggested.

Ike looked at her, eyes widening. "That doesn't sound good," he stated, laughing awkwardly.

"It would make sense, though," Roy added. "And I guess our costumes won't stand out too much here."

Lucina glanced down the street and started walking down it to the left. "We should try to find out what year it is," she declared. "Maybe then we can find a way to get back to our time."

The two boys followed behind her. "Yeah, that may be our best bet, but what if they use a different calendar than us?" Roy inquired.

"Uh-" Lucina hadn't thought of that. However, it did seem like a legitimate concern. "I guess if the warp goes wrong we can just try again until we find a time that uses our year calendar system."

"Besides," Ike added. "We don't know how to fight off that giant dragon thing anyways, so we should probably figure that out before we go back."

"So, does anyone remember from history class where time records were held in ancient times?" Lucina asked. "Or anything that might help us figure out when we are?"

"This does sort of look like some of those drawings and mock-up pictures they showed in history class of Altea before the Second Seal War," Roy remarked.

"Second Seal War? Wasn't that the one with the Earth Dragons?" Lucina asked.

"I think," Roy replied. "So, if that's where we are, and you didn't move us in time and space, then we're probably about a thousand years off from where we were."

"A thousand years?" Ike repeated. "So, we just need to find somewhere to train and then Lucina can warp us a thousand years forwards and we'll be good."

"Yeah, so where should we train?" Lucina asked. "Find somewhere outside of town?"

Roy shook his head. "It's a pretty big city; that'd take us a while. We should probably just find another alleyway or something."

Ike glanced to the side. "That looks good," he stated. Lucina followed his gaze and saw an alleyway, not unlike the one they had been in a moment ago. Turning towards it, the three looked around for something to practice on.

Lucina quickly decided that the wall in front of them was unlikely to break, unless one of them had some sort of explosive power, so she quickly looked for something to use to mark as a target. "Here," Roy exclaimed, handing her a stick when she asked for a marker. "Ike, use Flare on it and we can use the ashes to mark a target."

"Alright," Ike quickly shouted "Flare!" at the stick Roy had thrown on the ground, condensing it to a pile of charred dust in seconds. Lucina tried to pick up some of it, but found the paving stones to be damp and make the ash stick to it.

"That didn't work," Lucina stated. "Any more sticks?"

Roy looked around and quickly found a much smaller twig. "Would this count?" he asked.

"Maybe if you had five more," Ike replied with a small chuckle.

"We could always just use that ash pile on the street," Lucina suggested dryly.

Roy looked at it for a moment before commenting "It'd be a lot easier to hit if it were on the wall."

"Then find more sticks," Ike ordered with another laugh.

"Would it kill you to find them?" he retorted.

Lucina's attention was drawn away from her allies' squabble by the thudding of heavy footsteps approaching. She quickly turned to see three rather thuggish looking men with at least two very sharp looking axes in their midst heading towards them. Ike and Roy had turned towards them, and Ike pointedly whispered "Use Freeze so we can get out of here," in her ear.

Lucina almost cast it, but she soon noticed that the men had stopped moving and were blocking the entrance in such a way that they wouldn't be able to squeeze past them. Lucina pulled out her blade and held it in front of herself sideways.

"They look pretty well-off," one of the men pointed out. "Think that sword'll be worth anything?"

"We'll find out," another stated, bouncing his axe's blade in the palm of his hand threateningly.

Hearing attacks on both Ike and Roy's lips, Lucina pointed her sword towards the group of thugs. However, their attack was interrupted by a loud shout of "Don't you dare!" as a thin blade was thrust between the heads of two of their assailants. "Now," a voice that sounded like that of a young man threatened coldly. "Drop the weapons or I'll have to make sure I don't miss next time."

It took the ruffians less than five seconds to drop their axes and dash away from the alleyway. The one who'd saved them, who was wearing a dark cloak and a hood over his head, placed his rapier back into a sheath tied to his waist by a leather belt. "Are you alright?" he asked.

"Fine," Ike stated coolly, a crimson flush on his cheeks. "We could have saved ourselves, you know."

"Considering that girl had no idea how to hold a sword, I had my doubts," the cloaked figure replied, a flicker of a smile visible beneath the shadowy hood.

Roy sighed and went up to the young man, extending his hand to him. "Thank you, and forgive us for our friend's insolence."

Shaking his hand, the cloaked boy chuckled. "I was glad to help. Those three stir up an awful lot of trouble around here. Are you three travelers?"

"Of sorts," Lucina admitted. "How did you know?"

"If you were from Altea, you would have known not to be standing around in alleyways," he stated rather bluntly.

Ike muttered "Sorry, we were just looking for a place to train," red still burning his cheeks.

"Perhaps try somewhere outside of town, or perhaps I could offer you use of the castle's courtyard?" the cloaked figure suggested.

"How could you offer us use of the castle's courtyard?" Lucina asked, feeling she had probably missed something important. "Shouldn't it be guarded?"

A sharp inhale came from the young man. "Oh, how rude of me! I still have this cloak on, don't I?" He quickly threw the hood off, revealing blue hair and some sort of golden headdress. Lucina felt her skin prick with goosebumps; something was unnerving about him. She forced herself to not stare at him further in an attempt to figure out why. "I am Marth, prince of Altea. May I have your names?"

"I am Lucina Ylisse, and these are my, er, friends, I suppose, Roy Pherae and Ike-"Lucina stopped, realizing she didn't know her ally's surname. "Wait, what was your last name again?" she quickly asked.

Her words didn't seem to reach the blue-haired boy for a moment, who was gaping at Marth, much like she had been tempted to. "Oh," he seemed to register her question after a moment. "Ragnell."

"Right. Ike Ragnell."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," the prince stated curtly. "But may I ask why you all are staring at me?"

Ike turned red once again, while Roy started to apologize profusely. "I'm sorry, your highness, I just thought you looked a lot like Lucina, that's all!"

Lucina suddenly realized why she'd been unnerved by the prince; he looked almost uncannily like her. His hair was a similar shade, his eyes had the same pointed deep blue stare that Morgan often joked could kill a man if she held it too long, and even his facial features resembled her own. "Really? Lucina, would you mind taking your mask off so I can see this resemblance for myself?"

"Mask?" Lucina repeated. She had completely forgotten her costume included one. She took it off and felt her hair fall back onto her shoulders, as if it had somehow been pinning it up.

Marth gasped softly. After a moment of staring at her intently, he muttered "Yes, I suppose the resemblance is rather striking. Do you have noble blood, miss Ylisse?"

"Not that I know of."

He turned and started back towards the street. "I suppose we can investigate this further," he beckoned. "You three, please follow me to the palace. I will arrange for you to continue your training, because if Lucina's performance is any indication, you really need it."

Lucina felt a small smile on her lips nodded and the three Alchemist Knights followed behind Marth. The storm clouds overhead started to resume their downpour, but as Lucina walked behind the prince, she noticed a bright golden glow in her pocket.

* * *

_**AN- Yay! More obscure Fire Emblem references! Also, Marth, which I have been excited about adding from the start! Also, may I just say that I'm overjoyed at all of the new favorites, follows, reviews, and even the community feature! Really, you guys mean the world to me, and thank you for all of your support! **_

_**So, chapterly question! Are there any Nintendo enemies you would like to see used in this story? I'm curious as to what you all think. **_

_**So, thank you all for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	7. Marth

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Seven- Marth_

Lucina fished the glowing core out of her pocket. It was almost blindingly bright and didn't waver as she walked along the stone street. Though Ike and Marth didn't notice, as they were walking ahead of her, the glow quickly caught Roy's eye. "What's that about?" he asked.

"They did this before," Lucina answered. "Before I met you and Ike. They glow brightly in the presence of the person chosen to wield it."

Roy raised an eyebrow. "You mean Prince Marth? But what are the odds of that?"

"What were the odds of three of us going to the same school," Lucina countered.

Marth glanced back at them. "What are the odds of what?" he inquired.

"Do you mind if we discuss it at the castle?" Lucina quickly asked.

Marth turned his head away from them, throwing the hood back over it. "Gladly. We should hurry; the rain will only fall faster."

The prince quickened to a blistering pace, leaving the Alchemist Knights attempting to match his pace. The four of them made a mad dash towards the grey spires in the distance, Lucina stowing the golden core away and deciding to hold the mask above her head to shield it from the rain. Needless to say, it was one of the least effective umbrellas she had ever used.

The sprint to the castle, while not horribly lengthy, was exhausting. By the time the castle was within reach and Marth was attempting to get the guards to let them in, Lucina was panting and gasping for air, as was Roy, and Ike,( though he was attempting to hide it,) also looked like he was ready to keel over as well. After a moment, the large door of the castle was opened from the inside by a pair of guards, revealing a stone path to a larger building.

"Thank you," Marth called as he walked through the doorway, beckoning for the other three to follow. "So," he began, everyone else attempting to keep up with his brisk pace. "What was it you wanted to discuss, Lucina?"

"Is there anywhere that we could talk where no one could listen in?" she asked.

The prince nodded and quickly turned from the walkway and into a small shack several yards away, Lucina following his steps. He threw open the door and stepped into the dark building, which judging by what the thin shaft of light the door cast, seemed to be a storage room of some sort. "Will this work?"

"Yeah, it'll be fine," Roy replied, shutting the door back, casting the meager light from outside away. However, the golden glow of the core in her pocket provided a bright enough glow to almost fully illuminate the room, which seemed to be used to store primarily weaponry.

"What is that?" Marth asked.

Lucina pulled it back out of her pocket. "This is what I wanted to talk about. You see-"

She tried to explain all she knew, skirting around the fact that they hailed from another time, considering it would probably make everything sound even less plausible than it really was. After she finished explaining everything, Marth glanced towards the golden glinting artillery against the wall. "If you don't know who you seek to help or why, then why do you fight?" he asked rather plainly.

Lucina had to think for a minute. Luckily, Ike interjected before she had the chance to admit that she wasn't sure. "We want to find out what's going on, right?"

"Oh, yes!" Lucina replied eagerly. "And the best way to do that seems to be doing as the star creature asked."

"Not to mention it saved Lucina's life," Roy added.

Looking down, Marth grabbed the cord of the pendant, pulling it out of Lucina's hand. It began to glow even brighter, a white symbol resembling an hourglass on its side split in two appearing in it. "I suppose you have a point, but I have no obligation towards this task, and I fear it would interfere with my ability to help my kingdom." He thrust the core back at Lucina, making the symbol vanish. "I'm truly sorry, but I must decline your offer.

Blinking in shock, she tried to search for some argument to get him to join them. She understood his choice, but she also knew that she was instructed to find all of them. What she was to do if one of them refused wasn't ever mentioned, but she was sure that it'd be best to not let one go. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ike glancing away, looking just as confused and anxious as she felt. "I would be glad to offer you a place to train, or stay until you return to your home," Marth offered. "Speaking of which, I don't believe I caught the name of your home."

"Talis," Roy quickly lied.

"Ah. Princess Cadea is a dear friend of mine. If you happen to see her when you return, give her my regards, won't you?"Marth requested. "So, would you like me to try to show you some proper combat skills? You're free to borrow any of our weapons; we have quite a few, but I don't believe I'd be any help in anything but swordplay ."

Roy walked up to a stand with several swords on it, picking a rather elaborate looking silver sword with a golden hilt. Ike, however, eyed a rather weighty looking one with a golden blade. Lucina started to ask him if he would be able to carry it, but he answered by picking it up with one arm without difficulty.

Marth led the three of them into an offshoot of the path and into a small courtyard graced by a few flowering plants, bushes, and a green-leafed tree. "I know it isn't set up for training, but the knight's training area is in use at the moment, so this will have to do," he apologized. "Luckily the rain has quieted, but I know it's still less than ideal."

"It's fine," Ike quickly assured. "Thank you."

The prince then sat his cloak on the ground and drew his own blade, which looked more like a fencing sword than the far broader ones wielded by the others. "Lucina, would you mind if I borrowed your blade for a moment? It would be easier to instruct them using a proper sword, and you seem to have the most experience out of all of them."

"Didn't you say I needed help the most earlier?" Lucina countered, the corners of her lips turning up slightly.

"Yes, I suppose you're correct," he sighed. "One moment, please."

He returned with a simple iron sword in his hand and proceeded to give a rather lengthy explanation of how to properly hold a sword. Lucina felt as if they were wasting their time; she had meant for them to learn how to use their cores, not new weapons. However, she held her tongue, not only because her sword was her only reliable way of hurting an enemy, but because she wanted to not get on Marth's bad side. After all, she needed to find some way to talk him around to joining them.

She did feel like she was learning things, though. He was a good teacher, and seemed to know much about fighting. She offhandedly wondered if he'd had to use his skills for more than defending random civilians, but judging by the casual way he talked about combat, the answer was likely no.

The lesson was interrupted with a small question from Roy. "Do you guys hear something?" Lucina strained her ears. There was something off in the distance; a groaning roar that sounded rather sickening.

"Please tell me it's not another one of those Star Eaters," Lucina groaned. "How could they follow us across time?"

"Excuse me?" Marth butted in quickly. "What do you mean 'across time'?"

"Can I explain later?" Lucina asked, taking her sword and glancing around desperately, trying to find the source of the noise.

"We're not from here, we're from the future; Lucina's power lets us travel through time, and we accidentally ended up here," Ike hastily explained. "Got it?"

A slow nod from Marth answered. "So much for explaining later," Roy muttered, scanning the area as well. "Is it just me or does it sound like it's coming from underground?"

No sooner had he said that than a trio of rather decrepit humanoid creatures emerged in front of the group. They seemed to be wearing hoods that had holes exposing glowing red eyes and loincloths, and they reeked like rotting meat. "Great, zombies," Ike remarked with an uneasy smirk, drawing his overlarge sword. "This should be easy."

Their response was charging at them, slashing with gnarled claws. Marth quickly drew his rapier and stabbed one of them through its abdomen, which did little but provoke it further. It narrowly missed his throat with its next slash.

Lucina nearly cast Freeze, but was interrupted by a loud battle cry from Ike, who charged the zombie and sliced it neatly in two. Lucina then turned to one of the others and charged it with her blade, slashing its head off before it had a chance to do anything about it. Roy mirrored their actions, taking down the last one.

As the zombies crumbled into dust, Marth sheathed his rapier and extended his hand to Ike. "You saved my life. Thank you," he stated with a smile.

Ike shook it, his cheeks turning red. "I guess we're even now," he chuckled nervously.

"I suppose I'm indebted to all three of you," the prince remarked.

"It's fine, don't worry about it," Lucina replied. "But would you perhaps reconsider our offer?" she asked, pulling the golden core out of her pocket.

Marth took it from her. "For the time being, I suppose. If you really can travel through time, I suppose I won't lose any of my own by helping you."

"Thank you!" Lucina exclaimed.

"However," Marth added as he gathered his cloak, "I reserve the right to ask to come back at any moment."

"Of course. Now, let's get back to our time," Roy stated.

"Any ideas on how to do that?" Lucina asked.

"Warp a thousand years in the future?" Ike suggested.

"Okay," Lucina clutched her core in one hand and her sword in the other, stepping closer to Marth and the other two stepping closer to her. "Warp a thousand years in the future!" she repeated forcefully.

A white flash of light obscured her vision, but when it cleared up, it was not the courtyard or her own street that greeted her, but a shimmering building that looked to be at least a hundred stories tall. It was circled by some sort of railway; making it look like any image of a futuristic city she'd ever seen in a movie. "You think we overshot it?" she heard Roy ask, an edge of annoyance in his voice.

* * *

_**AN- So, sorry about the wait; summer is over now and that's sad, but I'll try not to let it mess up my regular updating. I hope it was at least sort of worth the wait. Also, thanks to Inuyasha Armin Scarlet for suggesting using Risen. **_

_**So, chapterly question. Who do you think will join the team next? We'll probably see the next member in the next chapter, and the only hint I'll give you is that it's (finally) not a Fire Emblem character. **_

_**So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	8. Leaf

_**Quick AN- New viewpoint of a new character from the mid-chapter divide on, okay? Thanks. –Twilight Joltik**_

* * *

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Eight- Leaf_

As they took in the colossal skyline looming over them, Lucina heard a sharp inhale from Marth. "Your future is quite a bit… taller than I would have thought," he remarked in awe. "Why are those towers so, for want of a better word, shiny?"

"This isn't our future," Ike answered. "It's probably, what, a few hundred years after us?"

"I think so, but why would warping one thousand years in the future bring us here?" Lucina questioned.

"Maybe it took it as one thousand years in our future?" Roy suggested. "But it seems a bit underwhelming for that far away."

"I think you're right," Lucina agreed. "But if so, shouldn't we be living in space or something by now?"

A white capsule that looked like a subway train shot around the central building of the skyline at lightning-fast speed, disappearing somewhere behind it. Marth ran out in front of the group. "Shall we investigate the glimmering towers?" he beckoned with a sideways smile.

Ike started walking towards him. "Sure, but you do know those are just glass, right?"

"How on earth would they procure enough glass to make such a large city?" Marth questioned. "It's such a fine commodity-"

"Future, remember? Things change."

Roy glanced towards Lucina. "Is it a good idea to just walk into some city?" he asked with an uneasy raise of an eyebrow.

"I suppose. I mean, it worked out fine last time, right?" Lucina countered as she began towards the tall metropolis.

* * *

Leaf glanced up at the Silph Corporation's headquarters, the place that had loomed over her life for five years. They had stolen her home, her friends, and in a way, her brother. Today, she had decided, was the day she would make them repent for every tear they'd made her shed.

"Ready, Leaf?" Green asked her.

She nodded. "As much as I'll ever be," she sighed. After a moment, she uneasily added "Do you think I'm ready? Shouldn't we wait for Red?"

"We can't afford to waste another second," her partner stated, dodging her question. "The longer we wait, the longer people suffer."

"You're right. It ends now," she affirmed. Reaching to her belt, she grabbed Jigglypuff's Pokè Ball and pressed the button on it, calling out her cute pink partner. Green took one of his Pokè Balls in his hand, tossing it to release his Pidgeot.

Using their respective Pokémon, they flew (or rather floated, in Leaf's case) up to the magnet rail that wrapped around the building, providing commute from Goldenrod City to Saffron. The magnet trains arrived directly in the building every fifteen minutes or so, and they caused enough of a blip in the security that they could likely use it to their advantage. As they reached it, Green pulled out another Pokè Ball, calling out his Magneton. It quickly started to float up towards the magnetized rail, but was stopped by Green, who tugged down on it. "Don't turn it on until the magnet train comes around. I'll hold on to you until then, promise."

The magnet Pokémon became little more than a dead weight, other than the occasional blink. Leaf could see Green struggling to keep a hold of it, and Pigdeot struggling to hold both of their weights, but neither paid any mind to their struggles and looked forward, awaiting the train. Leaf had always admired Green's resolve and strength, and though she would never admit to it, envied the boy for it.

Her partner suddenly grabbed her wrist. "Now, Magneton!" he cried. His electric-type Pokémon suddenly began to shoot up towards a white capsule that was speeding above them, pulling both humans and their other Pokémon up towards it, and attached to it with a clank.

Leaf let out a laugh. "It actually worked!" she exclaimed.

Green gave a sideways smirk as he withdrew his Pidgeot. "Once the train takes us in, we've gotta run to the supplies closet as soon as we can, are you ready?" Leaf nodded, calling back her Jigglypuff.

Suddenly, she heard a sickening thud of metal hitting metal and a cry of pain from Magneton. It must have been knocked down from under the train, as she suddenly saw the enormous tower floating past her in reverse. Green let go of her hand and struggled to reach Pidgeot's Pokè Ball to stop their descent. Leaf fumbled for her Jigglypuff as well, but found it was falling a little ways ahead of her. She must have dropped it when she was knocked from Magneton. Green's panic-stricken face and mutter of "I'm so sorry!" told her the same had happened to him. Leaf didn't want to look down to face death with bravery, as she knew her brother would have. She closed her eyes and felt tears wetting her lids, bracing for the impact.

A freezing gale shot up around them, with a distant call of "Blizzard!", and she felt the harsh wind slow her fall drastically. She shivered as a pair of arms caught her. "Are you alright?" a male voice asked, panic filling it.

Leaf blinked her eyes open. A young man with ice blue eyes and crimson hair was looking back at her. "Er, I should probably put you down," he stated with a chuckle. She found herself collapsed on the ground with only a tiny impact. An apology came from the young man's lips, but she could barely hear it over the pounding of her heart.

"You saved me," she remarked in awe. "W-why would you do that?"

"You were about to die," he replied. "I mean, anyone who was able to would have-"

"How did you save us?" Green interrupted. "I don't see any Pokémon with you, but you clearly used a Blizzard attack."

"Pokémon?" a girl's voice repeated. "What's a Pokémon?"

A haughty scoff came from someone, probably Green. "How in the name of sanity could you possibly not know what a Pokémon is?" he asked.

"Maybe she got hurt and can't remember anything?" Leaf suggested. "You know, like amnesia or something?"

The young woman laughed a little. "No, we're just not from around here," another voice, this time male added.

"Where are you from then, the moon?" Green asked. "Seriously, I don't think there's anyone on the planet that doesn't know what a Pokémon is. What kind of shut-ins are you?"

"Stop being rude!" Leaf cried in indignation. She had no idea who these people were, but considering the rather charming boy who seemed to be with them had saved her life, she felt as if Green had absolutely no reason to insult them. "They could just be from somewhere far away, or maybe the Silph people captured them and did some brainwash thing on them-"

"If we told you why we don't know what those Pokémon things are, you wouldn't believe us. Can we leave it at that?" Leaf's red-haired hero requested.

"At least tell me how you used an attack without even the faintest knowledge of Pokémon," insisted Green.

"This," the redhead explained. Leaf sat up to see what he was referring to, and saw the boy was holding up some sort of red pendant that hung around his neck. "I have no idea what kind of attacks you're talking about, but this lets me use ice powers."

"Roy, is it really the best idea to tell such things to complete strangers?" questioned a young man wearing a long, dark coat with a hood.

Green stared at the pendant Leaf's hero, who was apparently named Roy, had referred to. "So you lot work for Silph? I heard rumors they were working on such things, but I never thought they were so far along. How do they work? What are their limitations? Can you use all ice type attacks or-"

"Listen, if they know about the cores, we might as well mention the time travel," the young woman, who had long, dark blue hair stated, arms crossed and brow furrowed.

"Time… travel?" Leaf repeated.

Green sighed, his face now buried in his hands, as it often was when he had a headache. "Please tell me you're kidding."

"You see, this is why you're not in charge," another young man, with blue hair and a green headband tied around his head groaned.

"Who said I wasn't," countered Roy. Leaf found some odd part of herself thinking "Wow, heroic and assertive!", and another part of her told that part to shut up, considering he was probably also either a little touched in the head, working for Silph, or both.

"I know!" Leaf suddenly exclaimed. "Since they might be important in Silph, maybe they could help us!"

Green leaned down and put his hand on her shoulder. "Look, I know you think it's best to assume the best of people, but this world is cruel and most people don't have your best interests in mind. Why would they be any different?"

"But they saved our lives!" Leaf pouted, standing up to be even with him. She wasn't about to let Green turn down her opportunity to learn more about these mysterious people (especially Roy, added that part of her brain she wanted to be quiet). "Isn't that proof enough?"

"I know our word doesn't count for much, but I promise we're not trying to hurt anyone," the blue-haired girl added.

"Fine," Green hissed, leaning over to pick up the Poké Balls they had dropped in their fall. "But if you're wrong, I'm not going to forgive you just on the principle that Red's your brother. Back to HQ, then."

"Thank you!" Leaf cried, attempting to tackle Green with a hug, only to be pushed away. "Don't worry," she added to the others. "I'm sure he'll come around. So, do you want me to tell you about Pokémon?"

"Sure?" the blue-haired boy answered. As they started to their headquarters, Leaf found herself drawn to looking at their odd new friends. She wasn't sure if her eyes were playing tricks on her or not, but she was certain something was glowing in the girl's pocket.

* * *

_**AN- So, I suspect no one was expecting Futureland to be the Pokémon world, huh? Well, considering medival-type Fire Emblem became modern day for the most part, it shouldn't surprise you that I'm unconventional. Don't worry, next chapter will explain more about these characters and their goals and motivations. Also, to Animal Addict, there will be Zelda in this.**_

_**So, chapterly question! I'm planning on posting side stories about some of the characters in this story to give them some backstory. For instance, showing signifigant incidents in their past. My question is, would you rather they be posted as insert chapters in this story, or have their own story called Alchemist Spirit Knight Gaiden or something like that? Either way, there should be one up soon-ish about some of the characters in the Pokémon world. **_

_**So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	9. Green

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Nine- Green_

After twenty straight minutes of the girl, who had introduced herself as Leaf, trying to explain them to the group, Lucina had officially decided Pokémon were completely confusing and frankly a bit silly. For one, almost all of them had names that were some sort of random portmanteau or pun, for instance, "Jigglypuff" or "Squirtle". Furthermore, they had abilities that hardly made much sense, but seemed to be inherited to the creatures. When Leaf attempted to explain how her small, yellow creature; "Pichu" was able to use lightning powers, she found her head spinning from the nonsensical explanations she gave.

Roy seemed to take the concept in stride, and deemed the creatures "actually kind of interesting," as he'd put it. However, if she was baffled by the concept, Marth was triply so. Though he didn't say a word of it, Lucina could tell the prince barely understood half the words coming out of Leaf's mouth. Ike simply admitted that he "didn't get it" and left his side of the conversation at that, but Lucina noticed him making an effort to explain foreign concepts to Marth without being too obvious about it. For instance, when Roy had asked if Pichu's electrical system was at all comparable to a circuit, Ike had added "Y'know, does it enter one end and flow through it until it reaches the other and all that?". He'd received an odd look from Roy and Leaf, but the small nod Marth gave and the smile Ike gave back made Lucina grateful he was taking such measures to make the prince feel included.

In time, the group arrived outside of the city to a warehouse that seemed as if it hadn't seen human presence in thirty years. Green knocked sharply on the steel door in an odd pattern, and a blue glow surrounded it as it whirred open. A girl with brown hair and a red bandanna greeted them with a scowl. "I told you that silly plan of yours wouldn't work! Next time you do something stupid, can you at least not do it so high off the ground?"

"May, you never said anything about it not working," the boy Leaf had said to be named Green scoffed. "Besides, I have a new idea of how to get in."

"Oh really?" May asked eagerly, the hostility vanishing in an instant. "Well, hurry up and- wait," she glanced behind the boy, seeing Lucina and her companions. Her scowl returned. "Who the Weedle are they?"

Green sighed deeply. "My plan. You see, if you recall, I found evidence that Silph was trying to implant Pokémon moves into humans. And it seems that they succeeded, using-" Green suddenly snatched the cord Roy's core dangled from, breaking it quickly. Roy let out a cry of protest, but was swiftly interrupted by Green. "These things. The red-haired one-"

"His name is Roy!" Leaf clarified loudly. Lucina noticed a crimson tint on the girl's cheek, not unlike the one Morgan bore whenever Nah was mentioned, and tried very hard to hold back a chuckle.

"-he used a Blizzard attack using one, and yet he claims to not know what a Pokémon is. I suspect brainwashing in order to better connect them to the technology," Green explained. "So, perhaps they could be used in some way to navigate the headquarters better."

May huffed. "This all sounds ridiculous! How the Caterpie would they have been in the Silph building for long enough to have been tested on without running into at least one Pokémon? And furthermore, how would Silph have been able to make such a device?"

"I'll try to deconstruct it and find out," Green replied, tossing the core in the air before catching it.

"No! S-stop that!" Roy stuttered out. He lunged for the core, and Green turned away from it coolly. "Really, I need that back!" Roy pleaded. "Please, just give it-"

"You can have it back when I know how it works and if it can help us destroy Silph! Really, it's in the best interest of all of us, so please just allow me to borrow it," Green requested, irritation breeching his icy demeanor.

Lucina sighed. "It's not a machine, so if you attempt to deconstruct it, it will more than likely break," she attempted to explain.

"If it's not a machine, then what is it?" retorted Green.

"Magic, I presume," Marth answered calmly, stepping forward and flicking his hood down, revealing his blue eyes blazing in frustration. "I cannot pretend I know how they work, but if I had to guess, I would say they allow their wielders to cast spells without the use of a spellbook or staff."

Green laughed, May gave them a very odd look, and Leaf's eyes lit up like candles. "Really? Those things are magic! How awesome! You've gotta show me how to use it, please!" she exclaimed, jumping in front of Marth.

Pushing the girl aside, Green huffed. "Please stop joking around. Magic isn't real."

"Oh really?" Marth declaimed, as if he was challenging Green. "Then how would you explain the fact that my friend Tiki can transform into a dragon? Or how my sister is able to heal wounds with nothing more than a staff?"

"Yeah, and my brother's girlfriend can turn into a dragon too," Lucina added.

"And my friend Lillina can cast spells," Roy continued. Lucina stifled a giggle. She remembered the girl, another daughter of one of Lyn's friends, trying to use magic once at a party in an attempt to impress Roy, and nearly burning down the house while doing so.

"My friend Soren can use wind magic, and my sister can use those staff things," Ike stated. He added "Well, not very well, but kind of," under his breath.

Leaf's eyes shone, as if their claims were spells in themselves. "That's amazing! Please show me how to-"

"Stop," Green hissed. "I trusted your odd claims before, thinking you were merely confused. However, this I can't look past. Your blatant lies are painful to hear, and I'm afraid I won't tolerate it any longer." Taking a few steps back, he held a red and white orb in his hand and pressed a button on it, making a large blue creature that looked like some sort of frog ninja come out in a burst of light. "Greninja, take care of them."

Lucina began to say something of the fact that their creatures seemed as magical as anything in their time, but was stopped by Leaf rushing up next to him and promptly chomping down on the arm he was holding Roy's core in. Green let out a small yelp of pain, and Leaf snatched the pendant out of his hand and delivered it to Roy. "Here you go!" she chirped, blushing.

"Thanks," Roy muttered, fiddling with the chain to try to get it to stay together. "How did you break this in the first place?" he asked Green, who was still reeling in shock from what had happened.

"Cut it when you weren't looking," he replied with a snarl. "Leaf, what the Wurmple were you thinking?"

Leaf crossed her arms. "You had no right to be so rude to them after they saved our lives!" she proclaimed.

"So you believe them, then?" May asked. Lucina jumped a bit; she'd forgotten the brunette was there.

"Of course!" Leaf asserted with a grin. "They saved our lives, and there isn't anything they've done to make me think that was a ploy. Red always accepts anyone who wants to help, and he's never gotten us in a worse place doing that, so why should I be any different?"

Green sighed. "Okay, let's wait until Red gets back. Then he can be the judge on whether or not these lunatics should be dealt with." He stepped towards the steel door and swung it shut behind them rather violently, flicking a switch on the wall to light up the building.

Lucina blinked in the suddenly bright light. The building, as she now saw, was covered in papers strewn across the room, with a few computers humming brightly. Not too far away from the door, a graceful-looking green and white creature, probably another Pokémon, stood in the shadow of some sort of bulletin board. Was it what had opened the doors earlier?

"Don't touch anything," Green ordered. "You might mess something important up."

Ike picked up a stray paper from the ground. "'Evidence Silph is working on a Doomsday Plan," he read. "What? Um, d'you mind explaining this?"

"The Silph Corporation is a technology company that started thirty years ago and quickly gained complete monopoly of the production of all electronics," Green explained, as if he was reciting something he'd said countless times before. "It wasn't long before they gained enough wealth to become insanely powerful. Their CEO has been a political leader for many years now, and they began to buy out many of Kanto's most populous cities. The old capital; Viridian is owned by them. Saffron- that's where we are- is also owned by them, and was recently appointed the new capital city."

"And they bought our hometown, Pallet, and turned it into a research facility," Leaf explained, her bright eyes dulling a bit. "They were trying to find a Legendary Pokémon. Our friend, Blue, she knew that and- and- they- she-" Tears welled up in the girls eyes as she screamed "Those monsters, those- those BIDOOFS! They murdered her!"

"That's why we have to stop them," Green finished, Leaf too tearful to speak. "They will do horrible things if we let them, and if we don't stop them, they could use that Legendary Pokémon to take over the whole world."

A strained silence filled the warehouse, finally broken by a soft statement from Marth. "I am sorry for your loss, both of your home and your friend. I truly wish the very best for you all. Please forgive me for snapping earlier."

"Yeah, is there anything we can do to help?" Ike added.

Green shook his head, and May quickly dashed off to a computer. "Red should be back from Cerulean soon, do you think you feel up to trying out Plan Number 472 or whatever we're on?" she asked.

"Very funny, May," Green huffed haughtily. "And of course. Leaf, you should stay behind for this one."

"Never!" the girl roared. "This is as much my fight as it yours and my brother's!"

Roy glanced at Lucina. "What should we do? I mean, there's not really any point in staying."

Ike gave a small laugh. "And to think I actually noticed something before you two! Lucina, haven't you noticed your pocket is lighting up again?"

"What?" Lucina reached in her pocket and pulled out the blood red, or "Pomegranate", as Morgan had called it, core. It was pulsating oddly, in a way much different than the steady glow that heralded her meeting of the three boys that wielded the other cores. "What could that mean? Surely it's not one of them?"

"Fate works in odd ways, doesn't it?" Roy chuckled. "I mean, that first warp was an accident, yet it still brought us to Marth."

"You don't think this could have been planned, do you?" Lucina asked. "I mean, for five to be in roughly the same location, geographically, and to be spaced exactly one-thousand years in the past and future, this couldn't possibly be a coincidence!"

Marth, yet again, looked a bit lost. "'First warp', do you mean to say you encountered me on the first try?"

"Yeah, pretty lucky, I guess," Ike remarked, a bit of crimson on his cheeks. Lucina thought she heard a hint of something she couldn't quite place behind the words. Kindness? Care? Whatever it was, Lucina realized she had been hearing it almost every time Ike spoke to Marth. Was it possible Leaf wasn't the only lovestruck one?

She was snapped out of her musing by a triumphant cry from Roy. "Hey, Green, you're trying to break into that big skyscraper, aren't you?" he questioned. Lucina turned to see the redhead looking at an incredibly detailed schematic of the building they'd seen earlier. "These notes, you say they have the least guards around the south entrance."

"If you're suggesting we attempt to break in there, don't bother," May countered. "We've tried. Seven times."

"No, I'm suggesting you cause a diversion there," Roy rebutted coolly. "With so few guards, if something happened there, it would surely cause the most suspicion and cause a bunch of the other guards to hurry there, making the other entrances easier to break into."

Green and May turned from the computer screen, while Leaf let out a cheerful laugh. "That's incredible! And you only thought of that just now?" The girl praised in awe.

"A fresh pair of eyes helps sometimes," Roy muttered as Green got up to look at the diagram.

"Not bad," Green muttered. "You think it might work?"

"Maybe?" Roy replied. "I mean, it's just a thought."

"If you want us to trust you, then prove it," Green hissed. "This plan of yours; if it's not a trap, then I'm sure you and your friends wouldn't mind accompanying us."

"What would that prove?" May questioned. "I mean, if they're really working for Silph, they wouldn't get captured."

"May, tell Red to meet us at the building," Green ordered. "He can be the judge of these four."

Lucina gulped. If the core wasn't reacting, she'd have hightailed it out of there in an instant. Regardless, as her fellow Alchemist Knights agreed to help Leaf and Green, she felt a sense of dread.

* * *

_**AN- Longest chapter yet! Next chapter will have the proper introduction for the Alchemist Knight of Pomegranate, I think. Also, I hope no one's upset about the shipping. I don't know where RoyxLeaf came from, but I think IkexMarth is cute. Regardless, I think you can tell how hopeless their crushes are. P-probably. In other news, that Gaiden chapter should be up probably some time after the next chapter in its own story, called Alchemist Spirit Knight Gaiden. Also, be sure to pay attention in the Gaiden chapters; I plan to add some hidden tidbits about the story. Speaking of which, if you're the twenty-fifth reviewer, you will win the right to ask me any two questions about this story's future events! That totally isn't my idea; I'm borrowing it from Reading Addicted, but I think it's a fun idea. **_

_**So, chapterly question! Do you like the Pokémon characters using loser Pokémon as curse words? I, personally, find it hilarious. After all, Bidoof is the best insult I can think of. **_

_**So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	10. Red

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina _

_Chapter Ten- Red_

The glass building that towered over the city seemed to pierce the sky and continue past it forever, at least when looking up at it from its base. "My, however could such a tall structure be made by humans?" Marth questioned in awe.

"Actually, it was probably mostly made by Fighting and Psychic-type Pokémon," Leaf corrected.

Marth looked rather sorry he had asked. "Er, so, how far up do we need to go in that thing," Ike asked.

"We need to break into the central mainframe of the computer, which is in the upper floors," Green stated.

"And how are we going to get up there?" Roy questioned. "Surely by the time we climb the stairs, we'd have been found out."

"There are warp pads that take you to other parts of the building," explained Green. "Of course, we have no good way of telling where they'll lead, but they'll keep us moving."

Lucina groaned. Why must she be involved in such a half-baked plan? The blood-red blinking in her pocket reminded her, and she desperately hoped it wasn't for either of the natives to this time they were assisting. While they certainly had good intentions, the fact remained that they scarcely realized that they had absolutely no clue what they were doing.

Green glanced around the strangely empty streets impatiently, most likely seeking the boy named Red. "Green, you don't have your PokèGear with you, do you?" Leaf asked.

"Of course not!" he proclaimed. "What kind of a fool do you think I am?"

"No, I meant to call Red," Leaf clarified.

Green looked a bit distressed, but Lucina couldn't tell why. "We'll wait a bit longer. I told May to meet us if anything happened or Red sent out any message."

"Green, I know you think they have trackers in them, but maybe it would have been a good idea to bring your PokèGear with you so Red could call you if something went wrong," Leaf berated with a bit of a victorious smirk.

Shaking his head, Green quickly changed the subject. "So, just to review, once Red gets here or once we get tired of waiting, those two," he gestured towards Ike and Marth. "Will act as if they are trying to break into the south entrance, which will give the rest of us an opening to attempt to sneak into the east entrance. Once inside, we'll make our way to the nearest warp pad and proceed from there."

"Excuse me, but this plan sounds a bit suicidal if you ask me," Lucina challenged. "I mean, if Ike and Marth are caught, we'll have no way to help them escape, and we'll basically be wandering around the facility with no sure escape plan."

Green stared at her, his eyes scanning her for something. Did he think she was telling some lie? "We have May's Kirlia to warp us out if we're cornered," he retorted sharply.

"But how are we to escape?" Marth countered. "Certainly you don't mean to leave us for dead!"

"Don't your 'magic powers' allow for that?" Green snorted in a cruel laugh.

"You had no way to know that for certain," Marth remarked sharply. "And furthermore, we do not happen to possess that ability, at least to my knowledge. Your intent was to get us all killed, was it not?"

Green fell silent. "Just as I thought!" Marth continued with contempt. "That is absolutely sickening! There are people who care about us all! To hurt us is to hurt many others, not simply eliminate a problem!"

"Yeah! To not trust us is one thing, but to sacrifice us just to get us out of your way is just plain evil!" Ike exclaimed.

"I knew there was something off about you," Roy continued. "But I never would have thought you were this despicable."

Lucina put her hand on the sheathed blade at her side. "We had no intentions to hurt you," she affirmed. "In fact, I think Leaf has more to fear from you than us."

Leaf stared at her partner and looked as heartbroken as she had when telling of her lost home and friend. "Green, is that really true?" she asked.

Green turned away from the young girl. "I promised Red I'd protect you. I promised him no harm would come to you, and I'd defend you at any cost. I thought they were trying to deceive us. I was so sure they were tricking us that I thought there wasn't any chance of them getting hurt."

Lucina felt as if the young man was trying to say something deeper, but it wasn't quite coming out. Had he promised Red he wouldn't allow Leaf to fall in love and leave? No, something else. Something graver; she could tell as much from the look in his eyes. "Green, why did you promise Red you wouldn't let anything happen to me? Isn't that his job?" Leaf questioned in an amused half-smile.

"N-no!" Green's voice cracked. "Not anymore! R-red went to Cerulean to find something out about the Legendary Pokémon, something dangerous. I'm not sure what, but he called me a few days ago and said he'd probably not make it out. Leaf, y-your brother, he- he's-"

Leaf went over to her partner and put her hand on his shoulder. "Don't give up hope!" She gave a shaky smile. "Even if he was in danger, I'm sure he was just taking precautions, just in case. Unless someone finds a body, there's no reason to think he's dead yet!"

"How can you be so hopeful?" Green asked in disbelief. "You've seen nearly as much as I. How are you still able to always assume the best?"

"Blue wouldn't have wanted us to lose ourselves to avenge her," Leaf stated softly. "I know you and my brother want to do good in the world, but shouldn't you do it with a smile instead of a frown?"

Green faced the girl. "I suppose so," he muttered. "Perhaps we should plan this out before attempting it again."

Lucina sighed in relief. She feared what would have come of that plan if it had been carried out. Of course, her relief only lasted for half a second, broken by several guards in black uniforms, all marked with a red S. "So you were the ones who tried to break in earlier, weren't you?" one of them called, holding a red and white ball like the ones Green and Leaf used to send out Pokémon.

Masses of the guards surrounded them quickly, backing them up to the wall of the building. Green gave a slight nod to Leaf, and the two sent out Pokémon; a huge brown bird and a small pink puff that Lucina recognized as the "Jigglypuff" the girl had told them about. The creatures started to hover in the air.

The guards sent out waves of Pokémon, including large, slightly terrifying bats, purple snakes, armored yellow and brown shrews, and several others. Many of the creatures spat some sludge at the Pokémon sent out by Leaf and Green, which quickly fell out of the air and were called back by their masters.

Roy cast a glance at Lucina. She nodded; they needed to help out if they were going to make it out unscathed. "Freeze!" Lucina called. The creatures and their owners all flickered to a standstill. Roy grabbed Leaf's hand, but she remained frozen, as did Green.

"It froze them too!" Roy cried in frustration. "We can't just leave them! Lucina, what do we do now?"

"How should I know!" Lucina exclaimed. "I'm no more experienced with this than you!"

The red-haired boy looked confused before shaking his head and turning to the blue-haired prince. "Marth, activate your core. You might be able to do something to get us out of here."

"And how am I to do that?" Marth asked, holding the golden core.

Lucina racked her brain. What had gold been? She couldn't recall, so she fished the notebook out of her pocket and scanned the pages. "Um, I'm not sure. It could be Earth, but it might be something else."

"Earth?" Marth repeated, his core not reacting.

"Lucina, what else?" Ike asked. "Hurry, I don't think Freeze will last much longer."

Lucina started to read the list of potential powers, but was cut off by another loud cry from outside the wall of guards. "Flamethrower, now!" called a voice. A pillar of fire shot into the air, and it was followed by a red dragon flying upwards, looking down at the guards and their Pokémon with contempt. As time restarted, the guards started to back away in fear. A young boy in a red hat stood in the center of the part, a green creature with a flower on its back standing beside him. "Come on, hurry!" he called to them before commanding the green creature to take one of the bats out of the air with a barrage of seeds.

Leaf and Green hurriedly dove through the part in the crowd, and the Alchemist Knights followed. They ran through the streets, finally stopping a few blocks from the tower. Leaf hurriedly embraced the boy upon stopping. "Red! I knew you were alive!" she exclaimed tearfully.

Red put an arm around his sister before giving Green a sideways glance. "I told you not to mention that to her," he reminded him.

Green looked away from them. "Red, please forgive me. I made some horrible mistakes while you were gone," he confessed.

"Or rather, he accidentally tried to kill us because he thought we worked for Silph," Roy clarified.

Red glanced at the Alchemist Knights. "Who the Magikarp are you?" he asked. "And what the Magikarp are you wearing?"

"I have no idea!" Ike declared. "Er, about the clothing, not about who we are."

"We are warriors from another time fighting to protect the cosmos," Lucina explained. "We're here because of this," she fished the Pomegranate core out of her pocket and gasped softly. The blinking light of earlier had grown steady and bright. "Red, please take this," she ordered, walking over to the young man and handing him the core.

A teardrop-shaped symbol shone in the core the moment he touched it. "What is this?" Red asked. "Looks a bit like a Pomeg berry's seeds."

Lucina chuckled. "Pomeg berry"; was that the future name for pomegranates? "I think you're meant to join us," Lucina explained. "They light up like that whenever they're held by their wielder, so that must mean it's yours."

Red glanced at his sister and friend. "Are they telling the truth?" he asked.

"Of course!" Leaf affirmed. "Roy- er, the one with red hair, he saved my life, so we owe our trust to them."

"I suppose he saved mine as well," Green added. "So yes, I think we should trust them."

Roy shot the two of them a grateful grin. "So, you want me to help you?" Red repeated. "Sure, but can it wait? I have a lot to tell these two."

"Sure," Roy agreed. "I mean, we can just warp back here if we need his help, right?"

Lucina nodded in agreement. "Sure. Hold onto the core, Red. We'll be back soon enough."

Red thrust the core back at Lucina. "Nah. You keep it so I'll know you'll come back, okay?"

Lucina nodded and held her core in one hand, beckoning her comrades with the other. "Okay, what do I say?" she asked Ike.

"Warp home?" he suggested.

"Warp home!" Lucina repeated loudly, and a white light enveloped them.

When it cleared, they were back on the street in front of Lucina's house, the great dark dragon still looming above it.

"What is that?" Marth questioned shrilly.

"Darn it! Forgot about that!" Lucina cried. "Marth, activate your core. Try saying, um," she flipped through the notebook. "Sky?" she suggested.

"Sky!" Marth repeated loudly. The golden core laying on his chest glowed brightly, the triangular rune reappearing in it. He was enveloped in a white light, and reemerged wearing a costume nearly identical to Lucina's, save for it being a brighter blue and still including the headdress he'd been wearing. Drawing his rapier, Marth looked upwards.

"What attacks would Sky power use?" Roy inquired.

"Maybe Clouds or Storms," Ike suggested.

Stabbing the sky with his blade, Marth cried "Strike!" and a gold pointed beam of energy shot from it. A loud roar of pain emanated from the beast in the sky.

The other three Alchemist Knights stared at the prince in awe. "How did you know to do that?" Roy asked.

"I do not know," Marth admitted. "But I suppose it worked. Strike!" he called again, sending another shot up to the great dragon.

"Alright!" a voice called from somewhere above them. "I'll take it from here!"

A volley of blue energy arrows shot at the beast, which let out another great cry of pain before falling to the ground in a spray of dark dust. A boy with messy brown hair and a pair of white wings on his back lightly descended next to the quickly evaporating pile of dust, striking a pose similar to the heroes of Cynthia's mangas, a blue bow at his side. "Piece of cake!" the angel exclaimed. His eyes flitted to the cores gleaming around their necks, and he grinned. "Finally found you guys!"

"Who are you?" Lucina quickly asked.

"I'm Pit," the angel declared. "Servant of Lady Rosalina!"

* * *

_**AN- Well, an awful lot happened here. And things will only continue to happen from here. Anyways, I changed my mind on the Gaiden chapters. They'll be posted in the main story instead of separately. It seems a bit cruel to make you go out of your way to get part of the story. Each main character, along with some of the side characters will have their own Gaiden chapter. Who knows; there might just be secret information about the plot and characters hidden in it. Er, I mean that more literally than you think… **_

_**So, chapterly question! Who's your favorite character introduced so far? From a purely literary standpoint, I like most all of them, but I think, oddly enough, Roy's the most fun so far to write for, mostly because his weird formal/informal speech is pretty similar to my natural writing style. Of course, that's not taking into account what I have planned for the characters later, as the answer would probably change then. Also, do you like the new chapter names? I thought they sounded better.**_

_**So, thanks for reading, and remember the twenty-fifth reviewer gets to ask two questions about the story!**__** –Twilight Joltik**_


	11. Gaiden 1- Brushfire

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Gaiden_

_Story One- Red- Brushfire_

Red and Leaf were seated on Green's _b_ed, listening to him harp on about why the Silph Corporation was evil and responsible for "Government Corruption", something neither of the siblings knew the meaning of, when the PokèGear on Green's dresser rang to herald the news that would change the three friends' lives forever.

Green was the one to pick up the PokèGear; it was his grandfather, renowned Pokémon Professor Oak who was calling with the news. Though neither of them could hear it, Red knew something was wrong from the astonished, pained _l_ook on Green's face. "No, that's not possible!" the spiky-haired boy affirmed in disbelief. "That couldn't happen, right Gramps?"

Leaf looked at her brother. "What's going on?" she asked. "Why is Green so upset?"

"I don't know," Red m_u_ttered, grabbing his sister's hand. "But whatever it is, I'm sure everything will be alright."

Green simply repeated "Uh-huh," into the phone a few times as the conversation dragg_e_d on, before finally exploding into a shout of "How could you let this happen!" that finished the conversation.

"What's wrong?" Leaf asked, her brown eyes filling with fear.

Shaking his head, Green turned away from them. "G-gramps. He said- h_e_ said Silph bought out Pallet Town," he spat out with great difficulty.

Red felt his heart stop for a moment. "What does that mean?" his sister asked.

Red _s_queezed his sister's hand. "It means that they own Pallet Town now," Red explained, knowing his friend should be spared from explaining the worst of it, trying to keep his voice steady. "They can do whatever they want with it now, and we'll probably have to move."

The young girl began to sob into her brother's sleeve. "B-but I love it here!" she whimpered. "I don't wanna leave! Big brother, isn't there anything we can do?"

"No, there's not," Green stated somberly. "It's already been done. We'll have to leave as soon as possible so they can begin using this place for research."

Leaf locked Red into a hug as tight as a Tangela's _C_onstrict while Green hit his head aginst the wall in frustration. "Stupid! I should have known this would happen!" cursed the boy. "This place is the most rural place left in Kanto! Of course they'd use it for research! Not to mention it's close to Viridian and the Indigo Pl_a_teau, so it's perfect for them!"

Red tried to turn out of Leaf's hug to grab his friend's arm, but failed. "Relax, Green. It's u_p_setting, I know, but it isn't your fault," Red reassured.

"Red, what ar_e_ we going to do?" Leaf wailed. "Are we going to have to live in the woods?"

"Silph is giving the citizens of Pallet free housing in Saffron," Green explained bitterly. "So we'll probably end up there."

Letting go of Red, Leaf looke_d_ up, eyes still red and watery, and suddenly smiled. "So everything will be okay!" she exclaimed, her voice cheerful, yet cracking. "As long as we're still friends, and we're all together, we'll be fine, right?"

Red shot his friend a glance. _"Please, no matter what the truth is, just say yes!"_ he thought.

Green grunted. "I suppose so," he stated, not sounding convinced of Leaf's optimism in the least. Red sighed in relief. "You two should go tell your mother. Would you like me to come help explain it?"

"Sure," Red _a_greed, standing up. "Just don't freak her out with all of your… er, opinions on Silph, okay?"

Green nodded, and Red tugged on his little sister's hand. They exited Green's house and started towards their own, but Green stopped dead in his tracks upon almost reaching it. "Red, look over at Blue's house."

Red glanced towards the house belonging to the young woman that had always been his role-model, even if she was, perhaps not the best one. A two men in b_l_ack uniforms were situated in front of it, Blue being held at gunpoint by one of them.

Red heard the shouts from the men. "You know too much!" one of them cried. "We can't let you spread anything!"

"_I_ don't know anything!" screamed Blue. "I don't know what you're talking about!"

"We need to help her!" whispered Leaf pointedly.

"No!" cried Green. "Leaf, they're dangerous. Red, please, get your sister somewhere safe. I'll stay behind and protect Blue."

Red grabbed his sister's hand and ran. Leaf was sobbing in fear, but silently; she didn't want the men to notice that they had overheard part of their con_v_ersation either.

The two children hid behind a house, far from Blue's. Red held his crying sister and struggled to hold the tears in himself. Green had not said anything of it, but he knew why they'd been sent away. Not because of danger for them, but because of the danger Blue was in. The young woman had always been a friend to the three of them, a mentor that would always help them out, despite their age difference. Red had admired the woman for much of his life, and always had begged his mom to hire her as a babysitter whenever she went out. She wasn't that much older than them, but she had always seemed cool and independent, but whatever was happening to her, Red was sure she wouldn't surviv_e_ it.

Green found them a few moments later, and he told them what he had overheard. Apparently, Blue had accidentally overheard some Silph executives talking about a plan of theirs; apparently the one that had led them to buy out Pallet. Apparently, it had involved luring the Legendary Pokémon Mew to the area with some technology to capture it and use it to gain power. Blue had attempted to tell some authorities about this, but Silph had gotten wind of this and decided that this knowledge of hers was to valuable to allow her to stay alive.

Green admitted to having fled before the gunshot was fired, but knew regardless that the woman had likely died. Not even Leaf attempted to add positive outlook to it.

That was when Red knew what the future held. Green had always said Silph was capable of terrible things, but that was the moment he truly knew it. Murdering an innocent individual just for accidentally overhearing something; it was unspeakable. Such things could not go unchecked, and Red vowed he would do his part to avenge this woman, and any others that had fallen to their hand.

Of course, it never occurred to him that he didn't know the whole story behind Blue and her fate. No, that wasn't something he would learn until much later, when he'd looked death in the eyes and became the bearer of a deadly, yet heroic weapon that had nothing to do with the Pokémon he'd grown used to using.

Yes, he'd be the Knight of Blood before he knew the truth.

* * *

_**AN- Gosh, that got dark! It's not as bad as it sounds though; Blood is the proper name of the Pomegranate core that Red wields, so Knight of Blood just means he's an Alchemist Knight by that point. This is five years before the main story with them, so Red and Green are about thirteen, and Leaf is about ten. Also, if you see a seemingly random italicized letter in the story, it's not a mistake. Pay attention to them; it might just help you understand things a bit better. So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	12. Nah

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Eleven- Nah_

The four Alchemist Knights stared at the angel that had appeared from nowhere. "'Lady Rosalina'?" Marth repeated. "Did she send you here?"

Pit nodded. "Yep! She wanted me to help guide the Alchemist Knights, considering the last guide sort of…"

The angel boy trailed off, and Lucina nodded gravely. The first guide must have been the star that had sacrificed itself to defeat the first Star Eater. "Yeah, so," Pit continued. "I guess you managed to find the first four of you alright."

"First five, actually," Roy corrected. "Red stayed behind in his own time."

"Whoa, you guys already figured out the time travel?" Pit exclaimed in disbelief. "I guess I don't have that much to explain, then."

"No, please, explain away!" Lucina insisted. "We don't know anything about what we're supposed to be doing or why we're doing it."

Pit took a deep breath and began to explain at top speed. "Okay, Lady Rosalina is the leader and protector of the Observatory, a city that floats around the universe, protecting young stars, also known as 'Lumas', and watching over the galaxies. But lately, it's been sort of hard to do that, since this group called the 'Star Eaters' thinks they can get more powerful by harvesting the power of the stars. They actually were founded a really long time ago, but the ruler of the Observatory before Lady Rosalina used his magic to create spirit guardians that could defeat them. His power alone wasn't strong enough to beat them, so he gave the power of the cores to twelve knights, which defeated the Star Eaters. Well, at least for then; they're back now, so I guess they weren't totally defeated."

He laughed awkwardly before continuing. "So, anyways, when Lady Rosalina saw the Star Eaters attack some star to get its power, she sent out the Alchemist Spirits out so the cores could be used again, and I guess they ended up with you guys, so it must have worked. She sent a Luma to help you, but, well…"

Lucina nodded. "I'm very sorry I couldn't save it," she apologized, her guilt coming back in pangs.

"Don't worry about it!" Pit reassured her with a cheerful grin. "Since it's a star, it'll just become a comet or star or something."

Lucina looked up at the sky. The stars were just barely beginning to come out. It must have been a bit later than she'd recalled, as she was sure she left in the afternoon. She wondered if the Luma that had helped her was shining in the sky, or would be someday.

"So, those Alchemist Spirit things, did they fuse with us?" asked Roy.

Pit nodded. "Yeah, but don't worry, it doesn't do anything to you except let you use the cores. Er, Lady Rosalina told me to be sure to mention that to you."

"And another thing," Ike added. "Was it random, or did you single us out?"

"I'm not sure," Pit admitted. "Even though I'm Lady Rosalina's number one assistant and guard, I still don't know everything about this. Can we just move on to abilities? She made me memorize this whole big list of them, and I really don't want it to go to waste."

Lucina pulled out her notebook. "Anyone have a pen?" she inquired. No one replied, so she put the notebook back in her pocket. "Never mind, I'll write them down later."

"So, um, which ones do you have right now?" Pit asked.

"Time, Sky, Ice, and Fire," Lucina answered, glancing at the gleaming pendants around their necks. "And the one that looks like a pomegranate seed, but I'm not sure which one that it."

"Okay, Time has an attack called Passing that speeds up time, I remember that. Fire has one called Eruption, Ice has, er, Bind, I think? And Sky… wait, Lady Rosalina said something about one of Sky's attacks. Oh, what was it called?" Pit looked like his head would soon overheat from overuse. "Something weird- Wait! I remember! It was called Lodestar! Lady Rosalina said it could teleport you to where someone is if you have something of theirs, so it could bring you to the other Alchemist Knights."

"Lodestar?" Marth repeated. "That word sounds familiar, but I cannot recall what it means."

The angel shrugged. "No clue, but I think you're supposed to use the cores to teleport to the others. Okay, other attacks, gosh, what were they?"

Lucina was suddenly very irritated at Pit. Yes, he had given them important information, but he seemed to be rather incompetent. However, it was better than no help at all, she supposed.

As Pit wracked his mind for the attack names, a red gem on the scarf he was wearing started to blink with great urgency. "Uh-oh! This looks bad! I've gotta run. Catch you guys later!" he exclaimed, his wings glowing with a blue halo as he flapped up into the air and vanished through a portal that had appeared, not unlike the one the dragon had formed from earlier.

"Wait!" Lucina called, too late for the angel to hear her. "We still need to know stuff and-"

Roy placed his hand on her shoulder. "It'll be fine, Lucina. After all, we have you to get us through this," he reassured her.

Glancing back at the boy, she remembered how much younger than her he'd once seemed to be. When they were young, the boy seemed like a child, always looking up to her and expecting her to know what to do. Though that had been so long ago for both of them, she could still see traces of his admiration for her. "Roy, I'm not that much older than you, and I'm certainly not that much more experienced," she confessed. "What we've been through; it's as much your work as it is mine."

The redhead drew his hand away and looked down. "I know. I'm just glad that of all the people to be saving the world with, it's you."

Turning around, Lucina saw confusion spreading across Ike's face. "Wait, you two know each other?"

"My dad's good friends with Lucina's foster mother," Roy explained. "We've know each other since we were kids."

"'Foster mother'; you're adopted?" Ike asked.

"Yeah, my mother and father died when I was little," Lucina acknowledged.

"So," Roy quickly changed the subject. "Now that we know how to track down the others and get back home, should we get going?"

Lucina glanced at her partners, and clearly saw a severe lack of energy in their faces. She felt her own eyelids growing heavier as well, so she shook her head. "No, I think it would be better for all of us to just get some sleep. Let's meet up in the morning, alright?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right; I am getting kind of sleepy," Ike admitted. "I'll see you later, okay?" He glanced at Marth and frowned slightly before walking off down the street.

"Good night, Lucina," Roy stated with a small smile before setting off in the opposite direction Ike was headed.

"Marth, if you'd like, I can return you to your own time and pick you up later," Lucina offered the blue-haired prince.

He shook his head. "No thank you. I considered it after Red did so, certainly, but I think I would rather stay with you all. All of you seem like such nice people; I would like to get closer to everyone."

"Alright. I'm sure it would be alright if you stayed at my house."

Lucina started towards her house, Marth following. Pushing open the door, she saw Morgan sitting on the couch anxiously, and Lyn standing near the hearth, turned towards the door. Morgan jumped and grinned sheepishly upon seeing the door open, but his face soon fell as he seemed to register who it was that had walked in.

"Aw, it's just you," Morgan pouted. "How was that thing you were doing?"

"It's a long story. Is Nah here yet?"

"No," her brother sighed. "I thought you were her at first. Thanks for getting my hopes up for nothing."

"So, how was whatever it was that Morgan was so against telling me about?" Lyn asked.

Lucina took a deep breath. "Lyn, if I told you something that seemed completely impossible had happened, would you believe me?" she started uncertainly.

After a moment's hesitation, Lyn nodded. "Yeah. So what, did a dragon attack you on your way home from school?"

Lucina gave an awkward chuckle. "Actually, kind of. Well, it was after I got home, but we took care of it."

"It better have not been Nowi," laughed Lyn. "I mean, Morgan doesn't need things to be any harder for him; he already looks like he's going to explode. Speaking of which, who's with you?"

Lucina tugged on Marth's hand, and the prince, who was looking around at every piece of technology around him with bewildered curiosity, stumbled inside. "Oh, this is Marth."

The prince politely bowed his head. "It is a pleasure to meet you, ma'am."

Lyn and Morgan stared at Marth intently. "You didn't find some sort of cloning spell, did you?" Morgan asked.

Taking another deep breath, Lucina began to explain the events of the past day to Lyn. "Well, last night, this star creature gave me this" she held up the Time core. "and told me it had magic powers I needed to use to save the universe. It can control time, and I defeated this giant metal spider last night, but the star died and gave me the rest of the pendants so I could find the other people chosen by them. I found two; this boy named Ike and Roy, well, you know him, and then we had to beat this other monster. We defeated it, but then another one came and I accidentally teleported us a thousand years in the past, which is where we met Marth, who came with us because he has one of the powers. Then we accidentally ended up a thousand years in the future and almost got killed and met another person with a core, er, that's what this is," She held the core up again. "And then we ended up here and that dragon got killed by an angel that works for the lady who sent the star that died and the cores."

Staring intently at her, Lyn smiled. "That's my girl! Saving the world and slaying beasts, sounds like me back when I was your age."

Lucina and her brother both laughed, but they soon stopped. "Wait, were you serious about that?" asked Morgan.

"Dead serious!" Lyn affirmed. "I told you how Roy's dad, Lilina's dad and I saved the world from destruction, I know I did. Every night when you two were little you'd beg for me to tell the story about the cloaked man and the legendary weapons. Heck, didn't you guys used to pretend you were legendary heroes, saving the world from Grima?"

"Yeah, of course I remember that," Lucina stated. She definitely remembered how her brother and Roy would fight over who got to be Hector and who had to be Grima in their games and Lilina would pitch a fit if anyone else tried to be Lyndis, while Lucina, for some reason, was always Eliwood. "But I thought it was just some story you and their parents had made up."

"Nope!" Lyn exclaimed. "And I'll prove it!"

Lyn ran off upstairs, and she soon heard the ladder to the attic creaking down as she rummaged through it. "I am so sorry," Marth suddenly apologized. "I feel as if I am intruding."

"Don't worry about it!" Lucina quickly reassured. "I mean, it's not as if we never have people over."

"Yeah, our cousin Owain used to come over here so much we started to call the couch 'Owain's bedroom'!" Morgan exclaimed.

"Speaking of which, Marth, you still want to stay here tonight, right?" Lucina asked. The prince nodded.

"He can sleep in my room!" Morgan offered.

Lucina shook her head. "Of course not; your room is barely fit for human lifeforms as is. He can have my bed. I'll use Owain's."

A loud clank and a cry of "Ah-ha!" came from the attic, and Lyn quickly came down from it, brandishing a curved blade. "See, proof! This is the Mani Katti; that sword I used back then."

Lucina inspected the blade. It certainly looked like the one Lyn had described. "This definitely looks real," Lucina muttered.

"This is awesome!" Morgan cried. "Why haven't you shown this to us before?"

Lyn let out a loud cackle. "Are you kidding? You kids would have ended up murdering a tree, if not someone's arm!"

Lucina nodded; that probably would have happened. "Alright, I believe you," conceded Lucina.

Punching the air victoriously, Lyn set the sword down. "Great. Now, is your new friend from the dark ages planning to stay the night here?"

"If you would have me, I would be infinitely grateful," Marth politely requested.

"Of course!" Lyn exclaimed. "Not like this isn't the first weekend in three years that one of them hasn't had a friend over."

A sharp knock suddenly came from the door, which Lucina realized hadn't been shut all the way. A young girl with long, red-brown braids wearing a white dress pushed it open. "Um, sorry to intrude, but I hate to keep my father waiting in the car so long. Morgan, I know this is important, but can we go ahead and leave?" requested the girl that Lucina realized must have been Nah.

"How much of that did you hear?" Morgan quickly asked, his face turning as red as Roy's hair.

Nah chuckled lightly. "Pretty much all of it. You have such a cool older sister!" she exclaimed. "And Miss Andronuts is really cool too!"

Morgan looked down. "Yeah, I guess I'm a bit of a disappointment compared to them."

"Of course not!" Nah cried. "You just haven't gotten your hands on a good situation to show off your heroics yet." She suddenly took a deep sniff, and turned her head towards Marth. "Um, you don't happen to know a Manakete, do you? I think I sense traces of dragon on your clothes."

"My dear friend Tiki is a Manakete," Marth explained.

"That's so cool! I know Tiki, and she talks about you all the time! I heard Lucina say your name was Marth, but I didn't know you were that Marth!" the dragon girl exclaimed. "You should go see her, while you're here."

Marth nodded. "Of course," he agreed.

Nah took Morgan's hand and thanked Lyn, dashing outside. Lucina smiled; she knew this girl would make her brother happy.

"So," Lyn began. "If you two are hungry, I can order pizza," she offered.

"Maybe in the morning," Lucina yawned. "Time travel really takes a lot out of you. Marth, if you want anything, I can show you where to get it."

"No thank you," Marth declined. "But thank you so much for your hospitality.

The two Alchemist Knights quickly found their way into bed, and as Lucina laid down on the couch, only one thought managed to form before sleep dragged her under; _"If Nah knows about me, shouldn't my friends know as well?"_

* * *

_**AN- Well, that was the new longest chapter yet. Also, I forgot how much I loved writing the scenes of Lucina's everyday life. These exploits of Lyn, Eliwood, and Hector sound interesting, eh? Well, they'll come up again later. On the other side of things, the next Gaiden chapter will go into Roy and Lucina's childhood friendship, and maybe into their parents' stories a bit. And Pit! Finally, some exposition! Also, so close to twenty-five reviews! I'm anxiously awaiting reaching that number, and just remember, every review you people write makes my day and may just push me to update sooner. **_

_**So, chapterly question! Since no one answered last time, I'll ask again; who is your favorite of the main characters so far? I still like Roy, but like I said, Morgan and Lucina's home friends and family are a blast to write for as well. **_

_**So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	13. Gaiden 2- Friendship is Magic(al Girl)

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Gaiden _

_Story Two- Inigo- Friendship is Magic(al Girl)_

Inigo was awoken at five in the morning by the instant beeping of his phone. Alright, that was a lie; he had already been up for an hour practicing his dancing, but he wouldn't have admitted that to anyone. _S_till, he tried his best to act like he had been asleep when he answered.

"What d'you want?" _h_e questioned into the speaker, forcing a yawn out.

"Yeah, it's fiv_e_ in the morning!" Cynthia complained. Inigo was a bit confused; did she think he had called her?

He glanced at the caller ID- it was a group call from Lucina, which _w_ould explain Gerome's snarl of "Lucina, I swear, if this isn't a matter of national importance, I will murder you." shortly after.

"Wait, what t_i_me is it?" asked the blue-haired girl. After a moment, she laughed awkwardly. "Gosh, sorry. Didn't know it was so early."

"Give me five minutes and I wi_l_l be at your house with an axe," Gerome hissed.

A smal_l_, panicked screech came from the phone, presumably Lucina's end. "_N_o, it's important, promise!" she assured the sullen young man that Inigo was wholly unsure why or how he was friends with. "I- okay, I'm about to say some things that sound really insane, but please, promise me you won't laugh, because I promise it's the truth, as crazy as it sounds."

"Of course I won't laugh!" Cynthia vowed all too eagerly for having been awake for less than five minutes. Inig_o_ had always envied that girl for her easy energy that didn't even need liberal amounts of caffeine to activate.

"Y-yeah, me too," Inigo muttered, trying no_t_ to sound awake.

Gerome remained silent, but Lucina proceeded anyways. "Um, al_r_ight, last night, or well, Thursday night, I got woken up by a star creature called a Luma that gave me a magic pendant that gave me the power to control time. And yes, I know that sounds impossible, but I'm not making this up. So, it died before it could tell me everything I needed to do and told me to find the other Alchemist Knights- that's what we're called- and gave me the rest of the pendants to help me find them."

"That's so awesom_e_!" exclaimed Cynthia. "You're like a real-life Magical Girl!"

"Lucina, I'm _g_oing back to sleep," Gerome declared with a scoff. "Please never wake me up for a silly story again."

Inigo suddenly burst put with a cry of "She's ou_r_ friend! How could you say something like that!", though he was entirely unsure of whether or not to believe her himself.

After a moment's awkward sil_e_nce, Lucina sighed. "Please let me continue," she requested. No one objected. "So, I met up with two of the other Alchemist Knights; Roy- you remember him, right? And this boy named Ike Ragnell, does anyone know him? They both go to our school. Well, anyways, we accidentally ended up in the past, and then we accidentally ended up in the future, and we found other Alchemist Knights there. One of them stayed behind, though, but we'll go back for him later, whenever we need to. Sorry, I know this all must sound crazy to you."

Inigo drew a sharp breath. "Yeah, it does. B-but don't worry about it. After all, we're your friends, so we're contractually bound to stand with you no matter what. So, in case you ever need anyone to sweet-_t_alk some lady guards or something-"

Lucina gave a chuckle from _t_he other side of the phone, and Inigo smiled. Yes, he might overdo it with the flirting sometimes, but if he could make just one person (preferably a girl one) smile, it was worth it. He decided then that he did believe Lucina, even though she sounded crazy. After all, how could someone tell a silly lie and then laugh not at his stupidity, but his- wait, that was also sort of stupidity, but either way, she was laughing with him, not at him.

"Lucina, I'm so jealous!" Cynthia cried. "You get to be a real-life _h_ero! Please, if there's anything I can do, I want to help you!"

"Thank you," Lucina beamed. (Or at least Inigo was pretty sure she was.) "I'm so lucky to have such good friends. And no matter what comes of this madness, _I_ know you three will be there to support me."

"Right, Gerome?" Inigo added. The young man in question stayed silent, and Inigo wondered if the flat tone of a hung-up phone had been lost among the madness. "Don't worry, he'll come around."

"Well, I'll let you get back to _s_leep," Lucina stated as the phone line grew silent, Cynthia leaving afterwards. Inigo smiled as he set his phone down and got back to practicing.

After all, if he ever wanted to be as brave as his friend, he had to try his hardest.

* * *

_**AN- Light hearted, people! I can do it! Anyways, I guess I lied about the next Gaiden chapter. I'll either post Roy's Gaiden next, or after the next regular chapter. **_

_**So, as for the twenty-five reviews contest, a Guest reviewer won it. So, Guest reviewer, since I can't contact you, I'll give you a choice. Either you can ask one question that I'll answer for everyone, or two questions I'll answer in a roundabout way. So, please post your question soon, or I'll give the questions to the reviewer after you. (Sorry, I know I sound rude, but in case you don't come back, I don't want the prize to be lost. I promise, your review means the world to me as much as any other!) And let me just thank everyone who's reading this, especially the reviewers, as I'm proud of how far this story has come.**_

_**Anyways, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	14. Luigi

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Twelve- Luigi_

On the street, which bared not even the faintest trace of the battles that took place there the prior evening, the four Alchemist Knights gathered under the morning sun. All but Lucina were still wearing their Alchemist Knight uniforms, making the former feel very guilty she hadn't explained how to deactivate them before. "Sorry, I should have told you last night; you deactivate the cores by saying 'Extinguish'," she apologized.

"You might have told us that beforehand," Prince Marth remarked. "But I suppose it's of no matter now."

"So, Lucina, which core should we try to track down first?" Roy asked.

Lucina cried "Time!" to transform into her Alchemist Knight form and dug a core out of her pocket at random. It was the green one, the one she'd initially thought to be some sort of Plant core, but that was most likely incorrect, given her past luck with them. "This one?" she suggested.

"Alright," Roy agreed. He then turned to Ike. "Hey, are you alright? You look kind of tired."

Lucina's attention shifted to the Knight of Fire, who definitely looked a bit unwell. His eyes were dark and distant, as if he hadn't slept at all between their meetings. "I'm fine," Ike muttered, stifling a yawn. "Totally fine."

"Ike, you need to take this seriously," Lucina huffed. "Those Star Eaters could destroy the world if we don't stop them, and you need to be capable of doing your best, which I don't think will come easily if you're half dead."

"Sorry, my sister was just sick and I wanted to be able to help her if she needed me," Ike defended, his voice lacking its usual fervor. Lucina knew in an instant this was a carefully rehearsed excuse, much like the ones she had given the previous day before deciding it was best if her friends knew of her quest.

Roy shot the blue-haired boy a glare; he could see through the lies as well. However, Marth simply gave a sympathetic smile "I hope she recovers soon," he stated kindly. The pained smile and the distress in Ike's eyes hinted that his insomnia may have had roots in this unrequited love Lucina was becoming increasingly sure he was harboring. Still, there was something else in Ike's eyes, something Lucina couldn't place at all.

"Marth, Pit said to cast Lodestar, didn't he?" Lucina reminded the blue-haired prince as she thrust the green core at him and stepped closer. The other two followed suit.

"Lodestar!" Marth called, holding the green pendant in his hands. Golden light from the Sky core spread out from him like wings and a cutting gale surrounded the four, whisking them off to God-knows-where.

The golden light cleared, revealing what seemed to be a grungy, rather run-down harbor. Marth smiled as his eyes scanned across it. "This place seems much more like home," he mused. A few odd creatures, bearing small, squat brown forms, only feet and rather impressive eyebrows interrupting their mushroom-shaped forms. "Okay, maybe not that much like home," Marth quickly amended.

Lucina glanced around their surroundings and suddenly felt rather uncomfortable in the place, as if it was not somewhere people who tried not to cross the law dwelled. A fog horn blew in the distance, and Lucina glanced at the harbor's murky waters to see a ship docking.

"So, now that we're here, how do we find the Alchemist Knight?" questioned Roy. Marth quickly handed the green core back to her, which was glowing faintly.

"I suppose we should just roam around until it starts glowing brightly," Lucina remarked.

With a quick sweep over the area with his ice blue eyes, Roy quickly shook his head. "There must be a better way," he declared. "I mean, this city is crowded, so even if it does start glowing, there isn't a good way to tell who it's glowing for."

"We shouldn't stay here for longer than we need to," Ike stated suddenly. "This place makes me nervous, like something bad's gonna happen if we don't hurry up and leave."

"I can feel something as well," Marth admitted with a shiver. "This place doesn't seem to be a nice place to linger, and I fear something sinister lurks here."

Despite herself, Lucina felt a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. "Is it just me or does it feel like these cores are trying to kill us?" she joked. "I mean, considering they made us stick around when Green wanted to kill us and it brought us to this shady place."

With an exasperated chuckle, Roy examined the green core. "Let's think, was there any pattern to us meeting before?"

After a moment of thought, Ike provided an answer. "Well, Marth and Red both saved us while we were getting attacked, and you kind of did," he mused. "But what, then are we supposed to just pick a fight and hope they come to save us?"

"Perhaps we should just let fate guide us?" Marth suggested. Lucina saw Ike wince a bit out of the corner of her eye, but she had no clue why. "You encountered both me and Red by chance, so perhaps that is the best course of action?"

"Perhaps, but I'd like to have an actual plan," Lucina remarked.

Just then, a blue creature that seemed to be wearing a hood and a mask bumped into Lucina. "Pardon me, miss," it called. Lucina quickly realized the green core had been knocked out of her hands, snagged by that creature. Drawing her sword, she rushed towards it.

However, her charge was interrupted by a green burst of flame that knocked the green core out of the thief's grasp. The creature ran quickly from its assailants.

Lucina glanced around to try and find who had helped her, and was quickly tapped on the shoulder. She quickly jumped around, her sword in front of her, blunt-side facing forwards, which quickly hit someone in the nose. The man who had approached her, a man with a green hat and mustache, shrieked in pain.

"I'm so sorry!" Lucina quickly apologized.

The man laughed awkwardly and handed her the core. "This is yours, right?" he asked nervously.

"Thank you," she muttered. "Were you the one that recovered it?"

"It was my brother that saw it," the man admitted sheepishly.

A man that looked rather similar to the other, save for being smaller in stature and wearing red approached them and put his hand on the other's shoulder. "Don't be so modest, Luigi! You were the one that got back her necklace!"

The green man, apparently named Luigi, turned away. "Um, we've got to get going, so have a nice day," he cried awkwardly.

Lucina glanced at the core on a hunch and saw it was glowing no more brightly than before. Shame, she had thought for a moment Luigi must have been the Green Knight. "Wait!" Marth called to the brothers quickly. "Our travelling party ended up here by mistake, so might you tell us where we are?"

"Rougeport," the red man replied. "So be careful."

"That name even sounds evil," Ike remarked.

Something, call it fate or a whim, told Lucina that her encounter with those two had been fated, so she suddenly rushed after them. "Hey!" she called breathlessly. "We don't really know where we are, so maybe you two could show us around or something!"

The red one turned around. "To be honest, we just got here ourselves," he remarked.

"Yeah, we're looking for a friend of ours," Luigi added. "She came here a few weeks ago and we haven't heard from her since, so we're kind of worried."

A sense of dread seemed to settle over the harbor with those words. Roy gave Lucina a sideways glance, as if asking for her permission, and she nodded, unsure of what he was plotting. "Hey, since you helped our friend get that necklace back, maybe we could help you two look for your friend!" he offered.

The brothers exchanged a questioning look. "Sure," the red one agreed. "The more the merrier, right? I'm Mario, by the way."

"I'm Lucina," she introduced. "And these are my friends, Roy," The red-haired boy gave a small wave. "Ike," The Fire user nodded. "And Marth."

"Thank you for your help earlier," the prince stated with gratitude.

"Alright, so where do you think your friend is?" Ike asked.

Mario glanced around. "I don't know. Maybe we could ask around and see if anyone's seen her?"

"That might not be a good idea," Roy warned. "I mean, that one guy just mugged us, so who knows what kind of crooks are around here?"

Luigi flipped out a thick book and flipped through the pages. "It says in here a famous professor of archeology lives here, so maybe we could start there," he suggested.

His brother shrugged. "It's the best idea we've got, so let's go find him."

The newly formed team set off through the stone gate to the town square, and quickly saw a creature that looked to be of the same species as the other brown ones they'd seen earlier, but with a pink body, a tan miner's helmet, and, bizarrely, a blonde ponytail sticking out from it. "She looks nice," Mario remarked. "Maybe she could help us."

She heard Roy sigh and mutter "Didn't I just say-?" under his breath.

* * *

_**AN- Sorry, short one today. But, hey, PAPER MARIO! I mean, it's probably my favorite game series in the history of ever that isn't Pokémon, especially the first two, and it has such awesome characters! Like Goombella! Love her! Hope no one minds I didn't make the Mario Bros say -a after every other word; I figured it would have gotten annoying after a while. Also, Inuyasha Armin Scarlet was the winner of the questions contest due to the guest's forfeit (Sorry, Animal Addict, I can't answer your question, sorry!), so yay for that! Next chapter will probably be Roy's Gaiden, so look forward to that before we get back to PAPER MARIO!**_

_**So, chapterly question time! As opposed to the question last time, who's your least favorite character so far? I really don't like Severa, but she was only in about two sentences, so I guess it's not that big a deal. But don't worry, there will be some not-so-nice characters coming up soon.**_

_**So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	15. Peach

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Thirteen- Peach_

Mario approached the creature with a calm smile. "Hello," the red man began. "Do you know where Professor Frankly's house is?"

The creature smirked. "Yeah, I'm one of his students; the name's Goombella. What, are you guys wondering about the legendary treasure or something?"

"No, but a friend of ours was," Mario explained. "She came here a few weeks ago, but we haven't heard from her, so we got worried."

Goombella gave a concerned nod. "Sorry. What does she look like, maybe I've seen her."

"Blonde, blue eyes, probably wearing pink. Her name is Peach, does that ring a bell?" Mario asked.

His face fell with Goombella's head-shake (or, at least, what could be called her head if her anatomy was at all comparable with anything Lucina had seen before). "Nope, sorry mister. You say she was looking for the legendary treasure?"

"I- I think," Luigi added shakily. "She might have also said something about ruins."

Goombella's eyes lit up and started almost skipping away. "I know where those are! Follow me!"

"Did we ask to go to the ruins?" Lucina questioned with a sigh.

Mario and his brother were already following Goombella, so Roy's calls of "Wait! Are you sure this is a good idea?" fell on deaf ears, as the Alchemist Knights faced little choice but to follow.

Five minutes later, their odd guide had led them into some underground passage of grey and bone-white brick that was cold and damp, yet oddly well lit. "This is the Rougeport Sewers!" announced Goombella cheerily. "This used to be a whole city, but it sank into the ground and was abandoned. There are still traces of it around, but mostly it's just a really interesting place. See, like over there," she ran over to an iron fence blocking a green pipe and hopped. "This fence is over a thousand years old, but it still stands today! Isn't that amazing?"

"I suppose it is nice to know that not everything will fade with time," Marth remarked with a distant smile.

"Yeah," Ike added uneasily. "I mean, even though whoever made it is gone, they still have an effect on the world."

Lucina chuckled. "It's an iron fence; no need to be so profound."

"These are probably the ruins your friend was talking about, so maybe you could look around and see if there's any sign of her," suggested Goombella.

Mario nodded. "That's a good idea, thank you!"

Goombella smiled and started running around the place. "I'll help too. If I see anything, I'll let you know."

"Let's go this way!" suggested Mario, pointing to the left. Luigi and Goombella followed him at once, while the Alchemist Knights did so begrudgingly.

Though they had no idea where they were going, Mario walked briskly as if he knew exactly where he was going. Luigi could be heard muttering something about slowing down and looking closely, but they didn't stop until they came to a dead end, or rather, a ledge that had about thirty feet of bottomless pit separating it from the other side of the walkway, which seemed to hold an archway leading into darkness.

"Should we turn back?" Luigi asked.

Goombella panted. "In a minute; I'm winded."

Roy suddenly nudged Lucina. "Hey, the green core is shining brighter," he pointed out. Lucina took the pendant out of her pocket and saw that it was glowing nearly as brightly as it had been upon meeting each of the others.

"We must be close to the green one," Lucina muttered. "But down here?"

"Their friend, the green knight; you don't think we could be looking for the same person, do you?" Roy suggested.

"Well, it's not like most of this hasn't been crazy coincidences," Ike butted in. "So, do you think they're across that gap?"

Lucina nodded. "I hate to admit it, but that would almost make sense."

Marth joined in with a comment of "Do we have any powers that could get us across?", which was a valid point.

"I don't know. Considering your power is called 'Sky', maybe you have some flight power?" Lucina proposed.

"Or Roy could use Blizzard to push us across," Ike suggested. No one spoke for a moment, but he took the cue and sighed. "Okay, not that, but maybe he could make a bridge out of ice?"

Roy instinctively clasped his red core in one hand and held the other one out as if to throw something. "That might just work. What would I say, 'Bridge'?"

"Think, what is it we need," Lucina muttered.

"A solid sheet of ice," Roy replied. His core flashed at the word "sheet", and Roy repeated the word louder with a pleased look of surprise on his face. A cold blast of energy shot from his outstretched hand and hit the other side of the chasm, creating a strip of ice that looked fairly stable and extremely easy to fall off of.

Mario and Luigi gaped, while Goombella hopped in joy. "Whoa, that was so cool, er, no pun intended," she gushed. "I've always wondered what was over there, but I could never figure out how to get across!"

She gladly volunteered to be the first across, followed closely by Mario. While Goombella practically skipped across, Mario marched purposefully. When no one else volunteered to follow them, Lucina sighed. Though no one had said it out loud, everyone, and Roy in particular, had been treating her as if she was the leader of the group, so it was her responsibility to take charge. Without a downwards glance, she started across the icy bridge, taking great care to not let the lack of traction trip her up. Of course, it had nearly the opposite effect; once she passed the ice, she almost stumbled on the stone brick due to the jarring change.

She turned back to see Roy had followed her closely, only a few paces behind. The red-haired boy reached out his hand to her to support him as he stepped off the ice. Ike was trying to go across as quickly as possible, but nearly slipped, only being stopped by Marth, who put his hand on the fire user's shoulder to steady him. The significance of the embarrassed flush on Ike's face seemed to be lost to all but Lucina.

Soon only Luigi remained on the other side, who seemed to be trembling. "Bro, we've got to save Peach!" Mario called across the abyss.

"But it's such a long way to drop!" quivered Luigi. His brother sighed and marched back across the icy bridge and grabbed his brother, dragging him across to the other side.

"Don't worry; this happens a lot," Mario explained.

The green brother fumed. "That wasn't nice!"

"Let's go on ahead," Lucina quickly interrupted. "We need to find your friend, right?"

They nodded and the party proceeded through the archway in front of them. The lit area ended and black crept up around them, but Mario threw a red fireball ahead to illuminate the path. No bottomless pits seemed to lay in front of them, at least, but everything else was a mystery. Goombella clicked her headlamp on and looked about the place, casting light on what seemed to be the rubble from some ancient building.

"Wow!" marveled the odd girl. "This is amazing! And to think none of this has been seen in thousands of years. I need to tell the Professor about this; he'd give me an A on the summer project for sure!"

"Surely someone else must have found a way across here before now," Roy countered. "A thousand years is an awful long time for no one to think of a solution."

They kept walking without another word. The brothers cast flames across the stone floor, while Goombella eagerly looked around. Eventually, they arrived at some sort of stone platform, a round one that was elevated slightly. Mario and Goombella stepped up onto it without a second thought, but Luigi hung back. "Hey, doesn't something feel off about this place?" Luigi asked.

"This looks like the pedestal from the myth!" Goombella squealed with delight. "It's said if the eight crystal stars are gathered here, the Thousand-Year Door will open. I've always wanted to see this in person."

Mario continued forward and stepped onto another, much smaller elevated platform, and the area suddenly filled with an eerie blue light. "Hello, Mario," a deep voice roared. "Fancy meeting you here."

Fists clenching, Mario looked up to see a giant beast with a spiked shell dropping down from somewhere, landing on the pedestal with a loud thud that reverberated throughout the large corridor. "Bowser! Should have known it was you! Where's Peach?"

"Wondering that myself," Bowser snarled. "She got away from me, somehow. Wouldn't be the first time, but it never stops being annoying."

"Pardon?" Marth questioned. "There seems to be some information here we do not possess. Pray tell, what history to you with that foul beast?"

Luigi took a deep breath and explained. "Basically, he kidnaps Peach since her father's an important diplomat for the Mushroom Kingdom to work out some sort of ransom deal to give his kingdom, the Koopa Empire more power, and Mario and I end up saving her. Repeat the cycle a few dozen times and you've basically got our lives."

"That seems… exhausting," Marth remarked, seeming as confused by that as he was by the light switches in Lucina's house.

"Look," continued the Koopa King. "If I don't deal with you and your lot it'll be harder to find Peach, so I'm just going to have the Family deal with you."

Before Lucina could question the meaning of his words, several small white propeller-powered vehicles dropped down, each one with a creature that looked rather similar to Bowser, save for coloration at the helm. "Koopalings, get them," ordered Bowser.

Lucina drew her blade. "Freeze!" she called. Everything in the area save for the Alchemist Knights grinded to a halt.

"Flare!" Ike followed, sending flames towards two of the group.

"Blizzard!" cried Roy, hitting a pink "Koopaling" with sunglasses, and another the odd lighting didn't allow Lucina to make out.

Marth rushed across the platform and called "Strike!", thrusting his rapier towards two more of their number. Lucina ran to the two remaining and swung her sword at their vehicles.

When Freeze wore off, all eight of the Koopalings were knocked down, their vehicles tipped over. Bowser sputtered in shock. "Fine, I'll just deal with you myself!" he cried, rushing towards Mario. Luigi quickly sent a volley of green fire towards him, and Mario pulled out a wooden mallet and struck the beast in the stomach. Bowser fell on his back and Mario promptly grabbed him by the tail and threw him off the pedestal, knocking the Koopa King unconscious.

"That was easy," Mario remarked. "But we still don't know where Peach is."

A frightening cackle came from above as a figure floated down. Looking up, Lucina saw a young woman with long hair in flowing robes carrying a staff topped with a blue gem that was filling the room with even more blue light. "Peach? You mean that girl who wandered in here alone?" the woman gave a flick of her hand that formed a blue portal like the one used by the dragon Pit had felled. A girl with blonde hair and a pink dress fell out of the portal and stood up sleepily.

Mario rushed to his lost friend and was quickly hit by the girl with a frying pan. "Lady Circe, was he the enemy you told me to take out?" asked Peach in a listless, robotic voice. She opened her eyes to reveal a blank stare that seemed to not be seeing anything.

The woman, apparently called Circe descended, and Lucina could see her more clearly. Her hair seemed to be green, and her face was covered by a mask that was pointed like a bird's beak. "Yes, it is quite fun to make the Alchemist Knights see pain delivered by an ally."

Lucina glanced at the green core, which was glowing wildly, the room filling with white and green light. Peach must be its bearer, but how could they break her out of Circe's spell? "You know us?" Roy questioned.

"Yes. I am Circe, one of the six Celestial Guardians and a leader of the Star Eaters. Surely you've encountered us before," the woman explained.

"I don't think so," Ike admitted. "We've fought Star Eaters before, but not you."

Circe giggled madly. "Lovely! Taking you pains out before you meet us again will be a great help! Peach, target the indigo one; she's the weakest."

Rage filled Lucina's blood as she called "Freeze!", which was dispelled by Circe with a lazy wave of her hand.

Peach started to charge for her, but Luigi jumped in front of her and knocked her with the hammer Mario had used against Bowser. The girl fell to the ground and a dark cloud manifested over her. Circe chuckled. "Well, aren't you bold? You seem like you'd make a good fighter. All that resentment, all that fear; I can see it, you know."

With a wave of her staff, Luigi was engulfed with a dark energy. Lucina attempted to reach out for the green man, but Roy pulled her back. A white flash made the area blindingly bright, and when it cleared, no sign of Luigi or Circe remained, save for the hammer the former had brandished. Peach was still collapsed on the floor, but Mario came to quickly and glanced around hastily. "Luigi! Luigi! Where'd you go!"

"He was taken by that woman," Lucina explained. "I'm sorry, there wasn't anything we could do."

With an anguished sigh, Mario took his hat off and placed it over his heart. "Peach is okay, but I'd better get her back somewhere safe before Bowser comes to. I don't know where Goombella went, but tell her thank you for her help if you see her. Goodbye, Lucina."

The red man picked up Peach and started back, but Roy quickly called out to them. "Wait! We needed to talk to Peach!"

"Whatever it was, it can wait until she's recovered," countered Mario.

The four Alchemist Knights were soon alone in the room. "I hope he'll be alright," Roy lamented. "I feel bad we couldn't save him."

"Whenever we see Circe again, we'll make sure she won't get away until she tells us where Luigi is and gets him back safe," Ike stated. "But for now, we should pull back. She seems strong, and if we're not prepared when we see her next, we'll be in for it."

"Of course," Marth agreed. "But perhaps our best plan of attack is amassing numbers. If we must, we'll go back for Red, and we should find the rest of them as well."

"Let's warp back to our time for now," Lucina ordered. The other three stepped closer to her as she called "Warp Home!" and a flash of white whisked them away.

* * *

_**AN- Well, exciting chapter. I was thinking I'd have to split this one up into two or more, but I figured I could just get it done in one, so you guys get a super-sized one. I know this isn't the Gaiden Chapter I promised, but that'll be up eventually. Possibly after the next arc; I changed my mind about the ordering. But hey, the next Gaiden's an important one, 'cause it'll explain some important things about one of the characters that won't be mentioned in the main story for a while. It'll star a certain green-haired Fire Emblem character from Path of Radiance/ Radiant Dawn that is quite frequently shipped with Ike, which narrows it down to two of them. (The Gaiden also may have shipping in it, but it's far from fluffy.)**_

_**Speaking of characters, we finally have legit villains! The Celestial Guardians are pretty cool, if I do say so myself, and you'll be happy to know that they aren't OCs. Even Circe is based off of a canon Nintendo character, but I added Cia's mask from Hyrule Warriors to make the design a bit more distinct. Also, I was tempted to have Roy suggest "Icemake Bridge" as a possible way to get over the chasm, but I refrained. And no, Peach is not a Princess in this; I figured one royal protagonist was enough. **_

_**So, chapterly question! Which Nintendo villains do you want to see pop up in this story? I've already planned out the Celestial Guardians, but side villains like Bowser and the Koopalings will still pop up from time to time.**_

_**So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	16. Gaiden 3- Hope and the Wind

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Gaiden_

_Story Three- Soren- Hope and the Wind_

Soren's attempts to fall asleep were halted by a ringing of his phone. He sighed- he had been so close to conquering this bout of insomnia. He _k_new who it was without even glancing at the screen; only one pe_r_son in the entire world would feel comfortable calling him at such an hour. "Ike, it is two in the morning, what could possibly be important enough that it could not wait until morning?" he questioned into the receiver.

"Oh, it is? I'm sorry, I didn't know _i_t was so late," his friend apologized profusely.

This _s_truck Soren as odd. He'd never known Ike to willingly stay up past eleven, and certainly not without noticing it was late. "So, what is it?" Soren repeated. "Something urgent, I presume."

"Uh, it's a long _s_tory," a nervous, uncertain voice laughed. Nerves and uncertainty were nothing he knew Ike to show in such great amounts, so something must have been wrong. "Just promise not to hang up or laugh, even if you think I'm joking, because I'm tell_i_ng the truth, I swear."

"What sort of trouble have you gotten your_s_elf into!" Soren demanded, worry starting to claw at his mind.

A small gap of _s_ilence made the air feel like lead and Soren's stomach and chest fill with it. "Well, this girl, Lucina, she gave me this magical pendant thing and told me and this other boy, Roy, that we needed to help her save the world from monsters or something."

Soren began to _a_sk the boy if he'd been hit in the head, but Ike quickly followed up with "Please, I know it sounds insane, but just believe me, alright?"

"Alright," Soren conceded, pushing logical _d_oubts aside for his friend. "Go on."

"And then we fought off this giant monster with the powers those pendants gave us. It was kind of cool, I mean, I have some pretty cool fire magic, and Lucina can freeze time, but it also gave us th_e_se weird costumes, and capes, for some reason. I don't know why."

Soren gave a snort of laughter. "Of course, the world's f_a_lling to madness and all you question is the capes. Y'know, I think I do believe you; it's so nonsensical that I don't think you could have made it up."

His friend gave a sigh of relief. "Good. So, I really need your help with something."

"I don't think I could help you save the world. It flatte_r_s me you would offer, but my wind magic is hardly powerful enough to move a stone. It could hardly fell beasts."

"That's not what I meant," Ike clarified. "Actually, I'm not even sure I'm supposed to tell you about this, but you're the only one who can help me with this. You see, I think-"

Soren, with the precognitive grace that came with _f_riendship, knew what Ike was about to say next. "What's his name?" Soren asked.

"Marth, but that's not the point," Ike _r_eplied. "I mentioned Lucina had time-travel powers, didn't I?"

"Yes. Go on," Soren stated, now completely unsure of wh_e_re this conversation was going.

"Well, we picked up another part_n_er, Marth, in the past. And by past I mean a thousand years ago."

Soren felt something pulling his lips upwards, a rare occurrence. "A boyfriend from the dark ages; I suppose you always have had od_d_ tastes."

Ike let a cry of frustration ring from the other end _o_f the phone. "That's not the point! The point is that when we when we turned in for the night, I looked him up on the internet so I could know for sure i_f_ I was completely hopeless!"

"And-?"

"I messed up, big time," Ike muttered gravely. "He- he's going to die. In battle. Among thousands. At age eighteen. After _m_arrying some girl named Cadea."

Soren felt a pang in his heart. Ike's anguish was painful, most of all when he had no clue of how to mend it. "_A_nd how did you learn this so quickly?" Soren asked offhandedly, in an attempt to find something to say.

"He's the prince of Altea right befo_r_e the Second Seal War, and that's kind of a big deal," Ike explained. "I mean, from what I know of him, he'd surely be glad to die protecting his kingdom, but you know what the worst part is?"

Soren allowed silence to answer for him. Ike continued with a heavy sigh. "He barely ends up being even a footnote in history. I mean, he allowed Al_t_ea to pass into the hands of Talis or something, but since some man named Kris ends up remarrying Cadea, really, Mart_h's_ death just ended up as a small piece of what brought peace after the war. Sorry, I'm still not sure what all of this means."

"Isn't there anything you can do? I mean, how old is he now?" Soren grasped, still wholly unsure as to what this all meant, except that it was paining his dearest friend.

"About the same age as us, so I suppose he has a year or less," Ike sighed. A short burst of silence preceded Ike's desperate question. "Soren, do you think time can be rewritten?"

He honestly had no idea how to answer that. "I don't know," he finally admitted. "But, since you have time travel, isn't it your job to find out?"

Though it was impossible to truly tell, Soren could almost see the slight smile, the little glimmer of hope that now lit Ike's face. "You're right," he exclaimed. The brightness faded away after a moment as he asked, for once in his life, a logical question. "But couldn't paradoxes start ripping the world apart or something?"

Yes, Ike had a point. Soren thought that was unusually wise of him, but he knew he couldn't let logic take away his smile. "You seem to really care about him. Isn't it worth a bit of risk if it means saving someone you love?"

"I'm not sure I love him, at least not yet," Ike clarified. "But yeah, I don't think I could just stand back and let him die."

"Right. I wish you luck."

"Wait, isn't this usually the other way around?" Ike remarked. "I mean, I'm the one being reckless and you're the one trying to talk me out of it with logic."

"Yes, I suppose it's a bit ironic," Soren mused. "But if given a choice between reason and hope, hope should always be chosen."

"That's awfully cheerful for you," Ike commented with a chuckle.

"Well, you are being unusually dour. Besides, you're the one who always says that," Soren countered.

Ike gave an awkward laugh, the one people used to fill space when they weren't sure what noise should go there. "I have never said that."

"Well, I paraphrased, but it's the basic principle, at least."

Silence filled the next lapse in the conversation. "Thank you. Now try to get some rest; it'd be nice to know at lease one of us has."

Another smile tugged at Soren's mouth. "Gladly. And if you ever need my help while you're saving the universe, never hesitate to call me."

"Good night."

The phone went silent, and Soren laid it back on the table beside his bed. He fell back on the pillows, trying not to think of Ike and this prince he was willing to break the world apart for. What he wouldn't have given to be in Marth's place at that moment, but he knew his chance with Ike had come and gone. And though it felt like an eternity ago when the blue-haired boy had held him in his arms, it still stung to think it was over and was now even surer never to return.

* * *

_**AN- Please forgive me for the extra-strength depressing-ness of this. It had to be done. But gosh, do I love this chapter. The mix of "Aww" and "Why, Twilight Joltik, why do you hate happiness?" is perfect. And no, I don't hate happiness. Marth and Ike are actually two of my favorite characters, but I heard somewhere that authors tend to make their favorites suffer the most. I guess I just want to see them be awesome in the face of adversity, or give them the best plotlines or something. This took place between Chapter Eleven and Gaiden Two, **__**so now you know what Ike's deal in the last few chapters was. So, thanks for reading! -Twilight Joltik**_


	17. Ness

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Fourteen- Ness_

The sun shone high in the sky as they arrived back in front of Lucina's house. "We should go get Red," Lucina ordered as the white light of her Warp power dispersed.

She fumbled for the pomegranate-colored core, but she felt a hand on her shoulder telling her to stop. "No, we need to find the rest of them before the Star Eaters do. Red should be safe," Ike advised.

Unsurprisingly, Roy came to her defense at once. "We have time travel, so we don't need to worry about outrunning them, right?"

"It is likely they possess that power as well," Marth countered. "Circe spoke of us as if she had met us before, so perhaps she met us in our own future, but her past."

Stunned, Lucina nodded. "That… makes sense. Makes my head hurt too, but you're probably right."

"Please ready another core so we can depart at once," Marth requested, holding out his hands with a small smile.

Lucina pulled out the bright yellow core and handed it to the prince, who cried "Lodestar!" and enveloped the Alchemist Knights in a golden light that seemed to fly through whatever ages and space separated them from their destination.

As the world came back into focus, Lucina let out a small gasp. Wherever they were didn't resemble some ancient city or spire-filled metropolis, but rather the place they had just left.

"Well, it's nice not to be spirited away to the dark ages for a change," Ike remarked jokingly. "But it's actually kind of weird how much this looks like home."

With a quick sweep of the area, a chill passed down Lucina's spine. This area looked like somewhere she'd passed en route to the supermarket almost every day since she was small, but just a bit different. A few shops had different signs, and the air felt different somehow. A car whizzed by, sending a slight breeze over the sidewalk they were standing on, but even it looked out of place, as it looked rather old fashioned.

"This can't be that far into the past," Roy concluded. "Maybe twenty years ago?"

Yes, this must be the past of Lucina's own world. Something about that unnerved her, perhaps the idea that there was no possible way she should be here. She wouldn't be born for another three or so years, so this world was nothing she should ever be able to see. "Let's hurry up and find the next Alchemist Knight," Lucina directed, snatching the yellow pendant from a slightly sad looking Marth.

"You alright?" Ike quickly asked the prince, odd concern filling his voice.

"Yes, it is just odd to think I am the only one here who doesn't feel anything from this place besides the chill of the wind," Marth replied. "Never mind that, though. We must find the Alchemist Knight."

A glance at the core showed a harsh yellow glow that almost made her eyes hurt, even in the sunlight. "Must be nearby," Lucina muttered, setting down the sidewalk, her partners following her.

An impact knocked Lucina back, stumbling into Roy. Looking up, she saw she'd run into a boy wearing a sideways baseball cap over his black hair. "Excuse me," he muttered. The glow from the core was blinding now, and it caught the boy's attention. "Whoa, what's that?" he questioned, focusing his gaze on the pendant in her hand.

"Would you mind holding this for a minute?" Lucina requested, thrusting the yellow core at the boy. A white symbol, a circle with two short lines coming from opposite sides of it shone behind the yellow glass, her suspicions confirmed.

"Oh, I get it," the boy exclaimed. "This thing has magic powers, doesn't it?"

None of the Alchemist Knights had a valid response to that. "That was quick," Ike finally remarked.

The boy shrugged. "Nowadays, I'll take whatever explanation I've got. Ever since all those people started disappearing, nothing's been right."

"People have been disappearing?" Lucina repeated.

The boy nodded. "Yeah, but you came to help save them, right?"

Lucina began to say that they had only come here to recruit him, but Roy burst in with an "Of course! We came here to stop any more people from vanishing and save the ones who have, but we can't do it alone. That pendant, if you activate it, you'll have great powers that you can use to help us save those people."

"Y-yes!" Lucina sputtered. "That's right! We're here to help save them, so just put that on and cry out- er…"

With a quick glance at the shining symbol, Ike suggested "Electricity?"

"Yes, Electricity!" Lucina affirmed.

The boy looked at them oddly before draping the silver cord around his neck and crying "Electricity!", causing the pendant to flash and engulf him in a white light. Upon clearing, Lucina saw his attire hadn't gone through nearly as drastic a change as the other Alchemist Knights. He was simply wearing a different shirt, one with blue and yellow stripes, but everything else remained the same.

"What, no cape?" Ike joked under his breath. Lucina let out a sigh of relief. If that activation word hadn't worked the first time, it would have made that boy doubt their intentions.

The boy looked at the core on his neck and smiled. "Why me?" he asked. "Is this because you knew that Paula was one of the ones who disappeared?"

"No, it was completely by chance," Marth admitted. "I apologize for that bluff, but we truly would be happy to help you save your friend." Lucina could feel Roy's irritation towards him for putting a wrench in his scheme flowing off of him like waves, but was grateful that he'd spoken up; she'd started to feel guilty about lying to the boy.

"Okay, thanks, I guess," the boy replied uneasily. "My name's Ness, by the way."

"I'm Lucina, the red haired one is Roy, the one with dark blue hair is Ike, and Marth's apparently the only half-decent person among us," Lucina quickly introduced. "Now, do you have any idea what happened to these people who disappeared?"

Ness glanced off in the distance, towards where in Lucina's time a strip mall was situated. "Paula ran off towards the warehouse over there while I was talking to her, but she didn't say why. I tried to run after her, but I lost track of her. That's all I really know."

"Had she been acting at all strangely before that happened?" Roy asked.

"I don't think so," Ness responded after a moment's thought. "And no, I don't think there's anything connecting the people that went missing. I've tried to find a link, trust me."

"Why don't we go over to that warehouse," Ike suggested. "We might find something."

Ness nodded and started walking towards there, the rest of the Alchemist Knights following. "So, why are you here if it isn't to save those people?" Ness questioned.

"We were given those pendant things to help save the world from a group called the Star Eaters, and we came here looking for one of the Alchemist Knights who could use it," Lucina explained, trying to say it as fast as she could without confusing him.

"Cool! Do you think maybe the Star Eaters are why all those people went missing?" Ness suggested.

That was a likely idea. After all, Circe had targeted Peach, so it was likely that other Alchemist Knights would be targeted. "Possibly," Lucina muttered.

Ness showered them with questions the entire way to the warehouse, which started to get annoying rather quickly. Luckily, it was a mercifully short walk with the route Ness took, which she was fairly certain wasn't entirely legal.

Upon arriving at the warehouse, Lucina started to feel something more than the uncanny valley uncomforted she felt from the location, as if something more sinister lurked there. The whole place seemed as if it hadn't seen usage in decades, and frankly, it seemed to be a miracle it still stood. Greenery encroached upon the area so heavily that in some spots the pale walls had been overtaken by deep green ivy. If it had still been around in her day, she was sure that Morgan and his friends would have dared each other to approach the place at night, given the eeriness of it.

"This is the place," Ness stated. "We should go in, right?"

"Yeah, I guess," Ike agreed. "But it might be dangerous, so Marth, you and Ness should stay out here."

Marth looked irked by his order. "Do you think me incapable of danger," he asked with a glare.

Ike turned bright red and broke eye contact with the prince at once. "No! Of course not," he assured. "I just thought some of us should stay outside in case of, er, ambushes!"

"Perhaps, but considering Lucina is our leader, I believe her safety is the priority here," Marth countered. "Why would you prioritize my safety over the leader's?"

"Why am I the leader?" Lucina interjected, hoping to pull Ike out of an awkward conversation. "Is it just because I was the first Alchemist Knight?"

"It's because you usually know what you're doing," Roy explained. "Or, well, at least more of an idea than the rest of us."

Lucina sighed. Sometimes she wondered if Roy really had gotten over that crush he used to have on her. "I doubt that, but I'll still stay outside to guard. Roy, you stay with me. Ness, Ike, Marth, if anything happens scream for help, okay?" she ordered. The other three headed towards the rusted door of the building, and Lucina cast an anxious glance around the area.

Something moved through the bushes, and Lucina jumped. It seemed to be a few people, possibly investigating the area like them. Straining her eyes, she saw a young woman in a yellow dress with blonde pigtails barely obscured by the foliage. "She looks like your aunt, doesn't she?" remarked Roy.

Yes, Lucina supposed she did. Looking closer, Lucina started to see more similarities than she'd thought, down to the point where it was almost certainly a younger version of Lissa Luna, or rather at this time, Lissa Ylisse. Against her better judgement, Lucina moved in closer to try to steal a glimpse at the others with her. She could hear Roy calling her back, but her curiosity overcame her completely and her body moved on autopilot.

Before long, she was spotted, and a small scream came from Lissa. "Calm down, it's just a girl," a painfully familiar voice Lucina hadn't heard in years assured. In the shade, Lucina could make out the navy hair and eyes she'd inherited and felt tears pulling at her eyes. "Hey, are you alright?" her father asked her.

* * *

_**AN- Well, this is a bizarre mash-up. And trust me, it will only get more bizarre from here. Sorry it's been so long since I've updated; my life has been consumed by Smash Four. But in other news, the next several chapters should be exciting, and I'll finally get Roy's Gaiden, along with Lucina's up at some point. **_

_**So, chapterly question! If you've gotten a chance to play Smash Four, what characters are your favorite so far? And if not, who do you think looks fun? I really like Robin, personally, but Ike's been my main since Brawl and I don't think that'll change any time soon. Plus Lucina and Dark Pit are cool, and of course Jigglypuff is amazing as always. **_

_**So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	18. Dissonance

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Fifteen- Dissonance_

As Lucina started to move towards the group hidden in the bushes as if she was in a daze, Roy knew at once he was bearing witness to her downfall. It was perfectly reasonable for her to wish to see her parents, sure, but it could potentially cause paradoxes or do something bad. They hadn't been given any guidelines for the safe use of time travel, so none of them could be sure whether interaction with your own past would be fine or result in the implosion of time and space. When they were younger, Lucina had always warned Roy and her younger brother that reckless behavior never led to anything good, a lesson he unfortunately had to learn the hard way to get it to stick, so it unnerved him to see the very person that had warned him of that doing the very thing which she had warned against. Therefore, the task of reasoning with a girl with her impossible dreams laying in front of her, unfortunately, was delegated to Roy.

Quickly, he ran up to the stunned Lucina and placed his hand on her shoulder. "Hey, we shouldn't be bothering them," Roy quickly exclaimed. "Sorry for our rudeness, we really need to be going."

Roy was met with a sharp strike to his shin. "We're fine," Lucina practically snarled, tears still staining her eyes. "I just thought they might be able to help us."

"We don't mind, really!" cried a young woman with white pigtails resting on her shoulders, who looked remarkably similar to Morgan. "We're just trying to get in that building so we can find out what happened to some friends of ours. I'm Robin, by the way. It's nice to meet you."

Robin held out her hand to her future daughter, which Lucina took, choking back tears. "I-I'm," Lucina started to stutter out.

"Marth!" Roy finished, blurting out the first name that popped into his head as a cover. "And my name's Leaf!" He genuinely had no clue why the name of that girl that had assisted them while recruiting Red was the one to stick in his mind, but it was what came out, so it would be what would stick.

"Those are strange names. Are they foreign?" questioned a young man that bore a striking resemblance to Lucina, sharing her dark blue hair and eyes. Well, there went any chance of keeping Lucina away from her parents. From the tears streaming down her face, he should have known.

Lucina looked at Roy with complete confusion, and Roy tried to wordlessly tell her to leave the talking to him, but all he managed to come up with was pointing at his mouth and shaking his head. "No, we just have odd names. A friend of ours went missing just a little while ago. That's why L- Marth is upset, so don't worry about her. She just gets, er, emotional."

If it hadn't been for the swift interruption of a rather formally dressed man with brown hair, Roy was certain that Lucina would have ran her blade through his stomach in an instant. "My apologies, milady. Two of lady Lissa and lord Chrom's dear friends vanished as well. Perhaps we can work together to recover our lost comrades," offered the man, likely Frederick Luna, father of Lucina's cousin Owain judging by his overbearing politeness.

As desperately as he wanted to push them away to stop Lucina from messing up, she gave a cry of "Yes, please!" before he could refuse.

"Then it's settled," Robin declared. "Let's find a way in and go save Maribelle and Ricken! Well, and Marth's friend."

As the four people Lucina so desperately wanted to talk to marched off in search of an entrance, Lucina grabbed Roy by his cape and glared at him, malice and tears equally filling her gaze. "Why would you do something like that?" she demanded. "I just wanted to get the chance to know my mother and father. Why do you have to try to push them away?"

"I'm trying to protect you," Roy explained as calmly as he could. "We don't know what might happen if we cross our own timeline, and I don't want you to accidentally end up ripping the world in two."

"Aren't you the one who's always going off about how I always know what I'm doing?" Lucina countered with a snarl. "Why is it that the one time your faith wavers is when it matters most that you trust me?"

With a deep exhale, Roy tried to put his hand on Lucina's shoulder, but she darted away, drawing her blade. "I do trust you, I just know it must be hard to resist something like that."

"Don't try to sugarcoat it!" Lucina screamed. "You think I'm being stupid. You must or you wouldn't have made me look like some pathetic scared little girl in front of my parents and lied to them!"

This was getting frustrating, and Roy was tempted to explode and tell his friend how childish she was being. He tried to maintain composure, but that was increasingly harder with every passing syllable coming out of her mouth, considering she was screaming enraged accusations at him. "Lucina, I didn't mean to, I promise!" he assured her in vain.

"You keep saying I'm perfectly capable of handling this, but I remember what you said back at Silph. You think you'd be a better leader of this, don't you?"

He vaguely remembered saying something like that to Ike, but it was probably just out of irritation. "I meant I'd be a better leader than Ike, not you," he corrected desperately. "You're doing fine."

"Don't go blaming it on other people, you little know-it-all!" Lucina exclaimed.

Her words felt like bullets in his heart, and he found his composure had all but vanished. "I'm only a know-it-all because I actually know things!"

It turned into a rather painful shouting match, with Roy feeling a slicing blow with every insult only to spit something horrible out he knew he'd regret it whenever he came to his senses.

"Hardly, Ike and Marth have each helped twice as much as you!"

"Really? All it looks like they're doing to me is getting confused, like you!"

"I'm getting confused? Who asks me what to do every two seconds?"

"I was clearly wrong when I said you were smart, because you're acting so childish right now it hurts my head!"

"I was clearly wrong when I said you were nice to have around! All you've done so far is ruin my one chance to get closer to my parents, insufferable idiot!"

"Oh, I'm the idiot? The only idiotic thing I've done was have a crush on you!"

"That's not the only stupid thing you've ever done, but it ranks up with the worst of them."

"You've done much worse. For instance, you keep rushing into situations without even considering they could be traps."

"And where has it gotten us so far? Seven Alchemist Knights out of twelve and you call that stupidity?"

"You got that Luma and Luigi killed, and if Leaf hadn't stopped him, Green would have killed us all!"

"I think I know why Leaf likes you so much. After spending so much time around Green, she must have developed a taste for arrogant snotheads!"

"I'll never know why Rosalina gave such great power to such an immature idealist!"

"I know exactly why you got the Ice core, it's just like your heart!"

"If it wasn't for these stupid cores, I'd never speak to you again, you naïve fool!"

"That makes two of us, cold-hearted jerk!"

They were interrupted by a call from Robin. "Hey, we found a way in!" she announced. "Well, if you two are still up for coming."

Lucina let go of Roy's cape and eagerly ran off after her mother. "Of course!" she exclaimed with an embarrassed flush.

After she'd said all those horrible things, Roy couldn't think of Lucina as anything more than a naïve girl who wouldn't consider any consequences and was too hopeful for her own good. Something else told him this wasn't true, but he told that part of his brain to shut up for the time being. He wanted his blood to keep boiling, considering she'd been so awful. Okay, he'd been awful too, but she was the one that struck first. Still, he ran off after her to try to prevent her from doing anything else stupid.

They arrived to a gaping hole that seemed to be either burned or shot into the side of the building. "Someone else must have gotten here first," deducted Chrom.

"And recently too," Robin added. "The metal still looks pretty soft."

"Must have been the others," Lucina thought out loud.

He couldn't take it any more. "I'm waiting outside," Roy declared. "So go ahead and be stupid, I won't stop you."

He marched off, fuming. Hopefully Lucina would be ready to apologize by the time she'd finished in there, and he'd be ready to accept her apology. He vaguely heard Lissa ask Lucina what had happened between them, but he didn't care enough to hear the reply. He simply found a relatively clean place to sit down, on the broken bits of concrete that had once been a path to the warehouse. Looking down, Lucina's words echoed in his head. Had she really known about that crush he used to have on her? She hadn't acted surprised when he'd mentioned it. And what had she meant about Leaf liking him?

His thoughts were interrupted by a crackling beside him. Roy looked up to see a cloaked figure looming over him, holding a lightning bolt shaped sword in one hand and a thick book with a yellow cover in the other. "Knight of Ice, I see you and that girl had a falling out. You seemed to care an awful lot what she thought of you. Would I be wrong to say she was your friend?" inquired a vaguely familiar male voice.

Roy felt uneasy. Who was this man and how did he know him? "I guess," Roy answered. "Who are you, anyways?"

The man sat down beside him. A hood still covered his face, but from this angle, Roy could see a pointed mask not unlike the one Lucina sometimes wore in Alchemist Knight form also veiled it. "That is irrelevant. A better question would be to ask how I knew of your abilities, or why I would care about your falling out with that girl."

"Okay, then. How do you know about my powers and why do you care that I was fighting with Lucina?" Roy asked, the unease in the air growing sharper.

"I have been watching you four Knights, as you perplex me greatly," admitted the man. "The Knight of Sky and the Knight of Time, though, they're the most enigmatic of all. Therefore, any dissonance among your ranks is something I must take note of. My question for you is this: why do you not fear me?"

"Should I?" asked Roy, placing a hand on his sheathed blade.

The man stood up once more. "I am Grima, one of the six Celestial Guardians. So yes, you should fear me, considering you do not have anyone I care about keeping whole with you to prevent my attack."

Grima, he knew that name. Wasn't that the evil villain from that story he'd heard countless times in his youth? Roy got to his feet and attempted to cast Blizzard, but felt a bolt of lightning running through him before he could get the word out. The world faded to black, and the last thing he heard over the deafening pain was Grima's voice. It asked "Tell me, Knight of Ice, why is it that you and your allies interest me?"

* * *

_**AN- Well, we haven't gotten a different POV for a while. Nice change of pace. I'm not sure what you people will hate more, the fact that I ended on a cliffhanger or the fact that Lucina and Roy were so awful to each other in this chapter. Well, maybe I'll make you people suffer more by making Roy's Gaiden next so you won't get to find out what happened to Roy or how both female Robin and male Grima could be there. Well, one of those things you won't get the answer to for a long, long time, and the other one probably won't come as quick as you'd like either. Also, to Animal Addict who asked if Robin, Lissa, and Chrom would be in this, here's your answer.**_

_**So, chapterly question! Do you side more with Lucina or Roy in their argument? I think they both have valid points, but I also don't think anyone would have sided with Roy if they hadn't been seeing this from his perspective, as Lucina's intentions are a bit more easily understandable. **_

_**So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	19. Gaiden 4- Nightmare

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Gaiden_

_Story Four- Roy- Nightmare_

_Roy had known Lucina for longer than he could remember. He'd known the two for as long as he'd been motherless, he supposed, as he couldn't remember knowing his mother or not knowing Lucina and Morgan. She was only two years older than him, but for so long, that had felt like a great distance. She'd seemed so mature, so clever, so brave, and that was why he looked up to her._

_He remembered so many times when they'd play a game with Lilina, one where they'd act out that story they'd all grown up hearing. It was the only bedtime story he recalled, and he knew it by heart now. If he felt like it, he could easily spout it out word-for-word …_

"Oh, could you now," touted a voice that seemed to emanate from the edges of his mind. It seemed familiar, but Roy couldn't place why. "I would love to hear it."

_Roy suddenly realized that he wasn't quite daydreaming or sleeping, but more floating about in a hazy void. He barely knew why he was there, but he had a feeling it had to do with the voice. He wondered if telling that story might help him get out of that place._

"Doubtful," the voice replied. "But it will help you not lose your mind if you hold onto something you can concentrate on."

_What good would telling him that do, Roy wondered._

A laugh came from that voice. "I told you, you interest me. You'd probably be more use to me alive than dead, so hold on if you can."

_He was told-? It flooded back to him. The warehouse. The cores. He was the Alchemist Knight of Ice, right? And Lucina, oh God, Lucina. He'd said some horrible things. If he didn't hold on, he wouldn't be able to apologize, so he concentrated on that memory, the story he knew so well. _

_Once, a very long time ago, there was a horrible man named Grima that decided to attack the city of Iris. Happiness was the food he preyed on, and the more he consumed, the stronger he'd become, so he kidnapped many people of the city and gobbled up their happiness._

"Gobbled up their happiness, I did no such thing!" the voice exclaimed in outrage.

_The man that had attacked him had called himself Grima, hadn't he? And he wore a cloak like his father had described. Was it possible they were the same, and the story he'd grown up listening to was more than just a fairy tale? Well, nothing made much sense lately, did it?_

_Grima attacked a lot of people and grew more powerful and hungry with every bite, but he became careless. He kidnapped a lovely woman named Ninian, who was to be married to the brave hero Eliwood in a few days' time. In an instant, Eliwood ran to the fortress where it was said Grima was keeping his victims, but he knew not even he could face the great evil alone._

_He gathered his two best friends, the gallant knight Hector, who with his mighty axe could slay a thousand monsters in one swing…_

"That seems a bit farfetched, doesn't it?" Grima interrupted. "Sorry, go on."

_Well, perhaps his father had embellished the details a bit, but that wasn't important right now. _

_Eliwood also called upon the valiant Lyndis, who with her legendary blade could slice through anything. The three went to Grima's fortress…_

"I have a fortress in this story?" Grima asked in delight. "That would be lovely. I should tell Cobalt to find me one. She's always had a way with words, that one."

_Roy went on, trying to ignore his foe. _

_They stormed Grima's fortress and found the people who's happiness he'd been feeding off of imprisoned there, save for Ninian, who had used her wits to break free and attempt to free the others. Grima found them and was annoyed by the siege of his stronghold. He resolved to crush the intruders, and sent a lightning spell at them. _

_Dodging just in time, Eliwood and his force attacked Grima, engaging in battle with the fiend. They fought on for quite some time, countering every blow with one of their own, and at long last it seemed like they'd defeated him, but suddenly he turned into a giant monster, using all the power he'd sapped from the other people. _

_The four heroes were nearly bested, but suddenly, Grima started to slow. He'd used too much of his own power, and he was getting weaker. With a great charge from his sword, Eliwood felled the beast, and the happiness stolen from the people was returned back to them. Eliwood and Ninian married a few days later, and everyone lived happily ever after._

"Lovely story," Grima remarked. "The ending was sad, but it was still good. I can see why you wouldn't believe the story, though. Your father embellished quite a lot."

_Roy half wanted to run his sword through Grima, but that still wouldn't explain why he cared so much. Instead, he wondered if that meant the Alchemist Knights should back away from the problem, as if they stopped it before his father, that would surely cause some time paradoxes._

"Please don't go yet," Grima begged. "I want to understand what makes you Knights tick. If I can capture the Knight of Sky and have a peek inside his head, I should understand why he confuses me. Would you mind helping me with that?"

"_No! Absolutely not!" Roy tried to shout in protest. "I'm not helping a monster attack my friends!"_

Darkness crept up around him and he felt his mind slipping. "I have no intention to harm Marth," Grima softly stated. "Or the knights of Time or Fire. Please, just help me learn more about them."

_He struggled to keep a hold on his mind. Focus on something, anything, he begged himself. He grasped at anything that came to mind. His name was Roy Pherae. His father was Eliwood, his mother was Ninian. His favorite color was purple. His best friends were Wolt and Lilina, and Lucina and Morgan were dear friends as well. He fought alongside Lucina, Ike and Marth as the Knight of Ice. _

"Knight of Ice," Grima repeated. "I have no desire to harm you, Roy, not right now. Let us work together, shall we?"

_Blackness struck Roy like an arrow. He lost consciousness and Grima's unnerving chuckle filled his deadened mind. _

* * *

_**AN- This Gaiden was supposed to be fluff about Roy and Lucina as kids, I swear. It just got away from me. I guess this is a compromise between making you wait for info on Roy's fate (he's not dead!) and me getting this Gaiden out finally. Grima's a cool villain, isn't he? He gets better, just you wait. So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	20. Robin

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Sixteen- Robin_

On that day, Lucina had never been less sure of what was going on or how she felt about it. Yes, her parents were there, and she was finally getting a chance to speak to them after fourteen years of hiding her tears from Morgan and Lyn, but other than that, it seemed everything possible had gone wrong. Fight with one of your best friends which was completely your fault? Check. In the middle of a mystery involving multiple disappearances? Check. Have no clue what needs to be done even though the universe itself was at stake? That one deserved some sort of special check, perhaps with a special pen or something. Also, she was partially responsible for the kidnapping of a man that had helped her, unsure of exactly how much she could interact with her parents without causing some massive paradoxes, and quite frankly, in desperate need of sleep or at very least some food. Also, there was the constant threat of Circe or another Celestial Guardian coming back and attacking them, but she didn't want to worry about that until she had to. At the moment, her main concern was with trying to find out what had happened to those people so they could leave with Ness and concern themselves with finding the rest of the Alchemist Knights, spending time with her parents, and hopefully getting Roy to stop being mad at her.

At the moment, she was in a warehouse that completely and utterly unnerved her, her parents and younger versions of aunt Lissa and uncle Frederick accompanying her. As much as she wanted to talk to them, Roy's more rational words echoed in her head, terrifying her even more than her own nerves had been. Luckily, if anything, aunt Lissa could always be counted on to start a conversation.

"So, Marth, isn't it?" Lissa started as they made their way through the oddly dim corridors of the warehouse.

She started to object before recalling Roy's pseudonyms he'd given to avoid any unnecessary divulging of personal information. "Um, yes," she lied. "And you?"

"I'm Lissa. Chrom's my older brother," she introduced, gesturing towards her father, who was dashing down the halls briskly, without so much as a glance to anything in the dim light. Luckily, her mother, who had an Arcfire tome with her, was providing a bit of light for Frederick to investigate more than enough to make up for Chrom's straightforward strategy. "We came here because my best friend and her boyfriend went missing, and we heard rumors this place had something to do with all of those disappearances lately. Who was it that you lost, again?" she inquired with an innocent curiosity unfitting of her grave question.

"A friend of mine," Lucina lied, trying to grasp wildly at some proxy name. "Er, Peach. Doubt you'd know her."

"Sorry, I don't think so," admitted her future aunt, frowning. "That's weird, you don't look much younger than me, but I've never seen you around."

Gulping, Lucina began to invent excuses. "I'm er, homeschooled. Don't get out much. R- er, Leaf is too."

Lissa easily accepted this excuse, and Robin turned her head to the conversation. "That friend of yours, what were you two fighting about earlier anyways? I couldn't really hear what you were saying, but it sounded pretty bad."

"Oh, nothing important," Lucina bluffed. "We were just being stupid, me especially."

Robin nodded. "That's actually pretty mature of you. I'm guessing you have siblings, then. Probably younger ones for that sort of practice."

"Um, yes, actually," Lucina muttered. She had always heard from people that knew her mother that she had been sharp, but that was impressive. If only her and Morgan could have inherited a bit of that wit, perhaps they wouldn't be so dreadful at math, she thought with a rueful giggle. "A younger brother."

"Honestly, I'm jealous," Robin admitted with a chuckle. "I always wanted siblings, but I had to settle for Lissa, Chrom, Emm, and Frederick. They're like family to me, and I've known them so long that I feel as if they're closer to family to me than anything else."

"'Emm'?" Lucina repeated. She vaguely recalled the name from somewhere, but she couldn't remember where she had heard it.

"Emmeryn," Lissa clarified. "She's our older sister. She wanted to come, but Chrom was worried about her and made her stay behind."

She remembered the name now. Lissa on occasion spoke of her older sister, and still had a picture of her in her house, but she had died before Lucina was born. "Okay. Frederick is that man, right?" she asked, pointing to her future uncle, even though she knew the answer already.

"Yep!" Lissa answered cheerfully. "Cute, isn't he? We've know him for ages, but it took him forever to finally ask me out."

"Milady, you were the one to ask me for my courtship," corrected Frederick, who was still looking around eagerly in the dim light of Robin's spell.

"The details aren't important," dismissed Lissa with a hand-wave and a giggle. "What really matters is that you're the best boyfriend ever!" she exclaimed, tackling him from behind with a hug.

With an uneasy glance around, Robin employed her wit once more to ask a rather obvious question Lucina was shocked she hadn't thought of before. "Hey, just out of curiosity, why would a warehouse have hallways like this in the first place?"

Before she could attempt to find an explanation, Chrom cried out "Hey, I think I see something up ahead!", and a violet glow started to creep into the air. Lucina dashed ahead of the rest, hoping to find the rest of her group had perhaps caused it. If anyone else found them before her, her ruse would surely fall once someone pointed out her name was, in fact, not Marth. Without thinking, she called out "Time!" to assure no one would hear her speaking to them.

And right on cue, she found the other Alchemist Knights stationed in front of a glowing purple wall covered in odd runes. They turned towards her, weapons drawn upon hearing her footsteps, but let out a collective sigh of relief when they saw it was her. "Oh, hello Lucina, we were just trying to break down this strange wall. Any ide-"

Cutting him off, Lucina pleaded with the three. "Okay, this is really important; you can't tell anyone your real names, you can't say anything about the cores, the time travelling, or anything out of the ordinary, and most importantly, you cannot ask any questions whatsoever."

"Like why Roy isn't with you?" Ness interjected.

"I'll explain later," Lucina sighed in exasperation. "But you have to trust me on this, okay?"

Before anyone could respond, time restarted and Lucina's father, along with the rest of his company ran towards them. "Why did you run ahead like that?" asked Chrom, who was looking at the roadblock with a glare.

"I didn't want you all to rush into danger," Lucina bluffed.

Robin stared at the violet wall for a moment before pulling out a spell book. "This should be simple enough. Nosferatu!" she cried. A dark swirl of energy came from her hands and hit the wall, making an awful draining noise. The violet obstacle faded away, Robin giving a great gasp for air once it vanished entirely. She fell to the floor, trembling, and Chrom rushed to her side at once.

"Robin! I thought you said it was dangerous to use Dark Magic!" Chrom berated, taking her hand.

"But it did the trick," Robin stated softly. Lucina noticed her hands were glowing with a purple energy, likely the traces of the dark spell she'd cast. "You all go on without me, I'll feel better in a minute."

Chrom replied by sitting down next to her. "I'm not leaving you. Frederick, you take the lead!" he ordered.

"Yes sir!" Frederick called. "Lissa, stay close to me. Others, do you wish to continue with us?"

Lucina looked sadly at her parents. "We'll part ways here," she forced out. Putting a hand on her mother's shoulder, she muttered "I hope you recover" before rushing off down another corridor. The tears in her eyes blurred her view, causing her not to notice she was about to hit a wall before a hand on her shoulder stopped her.

"What just happened back there?" asked Ike, letting go of her shoulder. With a great sigh, Lucina explained her woes.

After she was finished, she was met with stunned silence, save for a single voice coming from the shadows. "I know that must have been hard for you. Will you please forgive me for earlier?" asked a voice she hadn't expected to hear come out so kindly for quite a while.

Roy stepped out from behind the corner and wrapped his arms around Lucina. "Of course," Lucina replied, returning the hug. "I wasn't thinking straight. I'm sorry to have been so rude. You were only trying to do what you thought was right, after all."

"However did you get ahead of us?" asked Marth.

"There was another way in," replied Roy as he let go of Lucina. His voice came out oddly; it sounded slightly foreign to Lucina's ears. "Let's go on, I think I might have found something."

Dashing off down the corridor, Roy led the way for the other four. Though there were many branching paths, Roy took each turn with a certainty that almost made Lucina uneasy. If it had been a day when her brain was firing on all cylinders, she might have asked when he came to know the place so well, but on that day she simply followed her friend, grateful he wasn't upset with her anymore. They soon arrived at another violet wall, which Roy lazily dispelled with a sharp prod from his blade.

"How did you do that?" asked Ness, gaping at the red-head.

Without turning around, Roy sheathed his blade and continued on, calling back an answer that seemed made up on the spot. "Dark Magic barriers always have a weak point."

"Are you sure?" countered Ike. "'Cause we stabbed it for an hour and nothing happened."

After a moment's hesitation, Roy gave an answer, his voice cold and distant. "Must have not been in the right place."

With that, Lucina began to suspect something was very wrong. "Hey, Roy, are you alright?" asked Lucina.

"I'm fine," Roy called back. "It's right up ahead, let's keep going."

They continued, Lucina drawing her own sword in case they were being led into a trap. A clanking of metal coming from Ike and then Marth told her that her suspicions were shared. Another violet barrier was dispelled in an instant by Roy, but it did not hold more dark halls on it's other side. Rather, a large room was on the other side, one that made Lucina shutter from the dark energy that seemed to emanate from it.

A large violet crystal was in the center of the room, and it appeared that some energy was flowing into it from various points across the room. A few steps in and a glance around told her the source of the energy: still bodies were strewn across the floor, forming a rough ring around the crystal. The energy seemed to be drained from each of them, a few particles at a time. The only unconscious form that wasn't being drained was a young man in a dark cloak, who was collapsed at the foot of the crystal. Ness ran across the room to a young girl in a pink dress and tried to shake her awake. "Paula!" he cried. "Wake up, please, you've got to!"

"They aren't dead," told Roy, his voice colder than Lucina had ever heard it. "They're simply being drained of their magical energy."

Something clicked in Lucina's mind and she voiced what she'd suspected for quite some time. "You aren't Roy, are you?" she asked.

"That depends what you mean by that," "Roy" stated coolly. "This is, in fact Roy's body, but Roy is not the one speaking at the moment."

"So you're the one who took Paula and all those other people!" roared Ness, taking his baseball bat in his hand and charging for the possessed Roy.

"Yes, but only to attract you all here," explained "Roy" as he dodged Ness's strike with ease. "The fact that I could gather their energy to give myself and my colleagues more strength was simply an added bonus."

With a cry of "Flare!", Ike sent a stream of blue flames towards the possessed boy. "You're a Star Eater, aren't you?" he accused.

A cold laugh came from "Roy" as the flames hit him in the chest, doing no visible damage. "If you harm me, your friend will suffer when he wakes. But yes, Knight of Fire, you are correct. I am Grima of the Celestial Guardians, and if you will meet my request, your friend will be unharmed, as will the rest of them."

"Reasoning with a monster is futile!" Marth cried, pointing his blade towards "Roy's" heart.

"I simply ask that in return for the release of your friend and these other people, you allow me to probe the mind of the Knight of Sky for a moment," Grima proposed with a twisted grin.

Charging for him, Ike swung his mighty sword at "Roy", barely missing him. "I won't let you hurt Marth!" Ike bellowed. "Now, release Roy!"

"It seemed reasonable to me," muttered Grima. "Very well then. I suppose if I must fight you..."

He went over to the cloaked figure on the ground and picked up a lightning bolt-shaped sword from his side. Slashing it through the air, a flurry of electric darts flew at Ike, knocking him back. With a stab to the air, Grima sent another bolt towards them, this time heading straight towards Lucina. Holding her sword in front of her, she braced for the impact before a bright blue light filled her vision and she found someone had stepped in front of her and deflected the attack.

A young man with white-blond hair sheathed his odd looking red blade and glanced at a blue circle that had appeared on the floor, much like the one Pit had used. Out of it shot three more fighters: a short, round masked creature brandishing a golden, spiky blade, another short, round creature, this one pink and unarmored, and Pit, who seemed to be wielding twin blades. "Looks like we don't have a choice," muttered the blond haired one, turning back towards "Roy" and drawing his weapon. "Starstorm Knights, let's go!"

* * *

_**AN- Hey, guest reviewer who asked for Shulk, are you happy now? Okay, I actually planned on adding him before someone said they wanted to see him, but I still hope it made you happy, Anon reviewer. This chapter seems to be one of those where everything happens, doesn't it? I mean, we have Robin, Lissa, Frederick, and Chrom, then Roy and Grima, before finishing up with Shulk, Pit, Meta Knight and Kirby. The Starstorm Knights are sort of the "Honorable Mention Alchemist Knights" but are they my favorite non-Alchemist Knights? Nah. (Love her, but I don't think she wins. It's actually probably them, just couldn't resist a joke.)**_

_**So, important chapterly question! What exactly determines a story's rating, whether it's Kplus or T. If it has deaths and some dark parts, but no cursing or anything inappropriate, would you consider that Kplus or T? I've been considering changing the rating on Alchemist Knight, but I'm unsure whether it should earn a T or not. What do you people think?**_

_**So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	21. Shulk

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Seventeen- Shulk_

As the fair-haired young man began to charge at "Roy", he was thrown back with another Lightning spell from Grima. He smiled oddly and ran to Pit, who had somehow merged his blades into the bow he had used before and was aiming an arrow towards their foe. Tapping Pit's arm sharply, he ran back towards the other Alchemist Knights as Pit and the other two charged "Roy".

"Okay," the boy started, his eyes flitting over the cores. "Good, you have the Electricity core. That should make this a breeze. Use 'Magnet' and you'll absorb his attacks. Should be pretty easy to take him out after that."

"Er, Shulk?" Pit called as he dodged one of Grima's blows from the lightning bolt sword. "I don't think we should take him out."

The boy, "Shulk" looked a bit confused before his blue eyes rested on the red core still laying on "Roy's" chest. "One of the Celestial Guardians possessed him," Lucina explained. "Is there any way to save him?"

"Luigi knocked it out of Peach, right?" Ike reminded them.

Shulk glanced at Ike's core and nodded. "I'm pretty sure it's not possible to beat it out of them, unless it was a really light grip, but luckily, we have you."

"Me? What can I do about it?" asked Ike, blocking a stray bolt that was soaring towards them with his sword.

"There's an attack you can use called 'Pyre' that can force dark energy out of people," explained Shulk. "Be careful, though. It'll hurt anyone who isn't possessed pretty badly."

With a nod, Ike darted through Grima's fire and started to cast the attack before being struck by a Lightning spell. "You thought it was that simple?" Grima taunted, a sneer forming across Roy's face.

Shooting a glance towards Ness, Marth started to spew out some sort of plan. "Perhaps Ness should accompany Ike to draw the fire," he suggested.

The knights of Fire and Electricity exchanged a nod and rushed back towards "Roy". With the next jab from the lightning sword he wielded, Ness called out "Magnet!" and the bolt was sucked towards some sort of blue energy field he'd conjured, being absorbed harmlessly.

A small flash of blue came from Shulk's general direction, as did a grimace of pain. "Wait!" he called, but it fell upon deaf ears.

"Pyre!", called Ike, and his core shot a stream of white flames. With a snicker, "Roy" dodged it gracefully and then sent some dark spell towards Ike. The cry of pain as a weak violet current rushed out of him made Lucina worry, considering how similar he was starting to look to the limp bodies on the floor. The white flames scattered on the floor gave her an idea. A stupid, reckless one that could potentially get Roy, herself, and/or Ike killed, but the only one she had at the moment. Her blade dragging behind her, she rushed towards "Roy".

Her sword seemed to catch some of the flames as it trailed on the floor, and it soon was tipped with pale embers. "Roy" was turned away from her, giving her the perfect window to charge her sword straight into him. If it really only purified the possessed, surely it wouldn't harm him, right?

Would this work? Lucina had no idea, but she was either going to impale or save one of her best friend, and she was really hoping it was the latter. She tried to make a cut that probably wouldn't kill him if it didn't work, at very least, but she still had to close her eyes as she made the slice.

A cry of pain made her open them once more to see not blood, but some sort of black flame shooting out of Roy. His body collapsed and the black fire shot back towards the cloaked figure laying down near the violet crystal. Everything seemed to stop moving for a moment as Lucina checked for a pulse. The fluttering rhythm coursing through the red-haired boy's wrist made Lucina's eyes cloud with teary relief. "Sorry," she murmured, her voice cracking. "I really hope that didn't hurt." Sobbing into her unconscious friend's cloak, she realized how worried she'd been.

"Jumpstart!" came a cry from behind her. A weak, golden current passed through Roy, who uneasily pushed himself up.

"God, that hurt," Roy muttered, clutching a hand to his head. "Was I attacking you?"

Lucina embraced her friend, and tried to explain what had happened as quickly as she could. "You were possessed by one of the Celestial Guardians and-"

"I remember that much," interrupted Roy. "Grima got into my brain, and then I was attacking you guys, I think. I'm really sorry about that, by the way."

"There is no need to apologize," Marth reassured him, his sword aimed towards the now twitching cloaked figure on the ground. "Do you feel alright?"

Roy nodded. "Yeah, I'm fi-"

"Lovely. I know this might seem cruel, but may I ask you to stay off the field of battle? Considering your injuries, it hardly seems safe to allow you to fight in this condition." Marth requested politely. Roy cast an uneasy glance towards him before nodding.

Grima stood up and smirked, his face covered by a hood and a mask. "Knight of Sky, shall we duel? My previous terms apply."

"If you fight one of us, you fight all of us!" Pit roared.

"We would never allow you to harm one of friends!" Lucina added.

Marth held his rapier in front of Lucina and gave a small shake of his head before stepping forwards. "I will gladly accept your challenge. However, may I extend this duel to three-on-one, favoring myself? Considering your advantage, it seems only fair."

Lucina almost asked what he was planning, but a warning glance from Ike and a small shake of his head stopped her.

Grima nodded. "I accept your terms so long as you accept mine. And you partners shall be-?"

"Ike and Shulk," Marth stated. The Knight of Fire and red-clad Starstorm Knight stepped up beside him, weapons drawn at their sides.

"What are they planning?" questioned Lucina as she watched Grima pick up his lightning sword.

Pit was watching the four intently. "It was Shulk's idea. He saw something while you were making sure Roy was alright and thought up a plan."

"'Saw something?'" repeated Roy. "What do you mean?"

The short blue knight was the one to explain it. "Shulk possesses the gift of foresight. He is sometimes able to see things before they happen, and plan accordingly," he explained.

That would explain his warning earlier, Lucina thought. "That's amazing!" she exclaimed. "Can he trigger it at will, or does it just happen? And how far can he see? Is it only things that happen to him, or can he see other people's futures too?" she asked, rapid-fire.

Pit's eyes were fixed upon the fire coming from the duel, but he shook his head. "He can't trigger it, he can see any point in his future, and he can only see his own future," he answered. "Well, that's what he told me, at least. Trust me, when I met him, I had the same questions."

Lucina watched Grima's lightning spells getting shot out of the air by Marth's Strike, but her mind started to fill with questions for Shulk and his partners. Had he always had the ability? Was that what had led him to working with Rosalina? Did he see exactly what would happen, or was he able to change it? How much of his own future did he know? The concept of foresight shouldn't have seemed so foreign to Lucina, considering she was a time-traveler herself, but it still seemed incredible that someone would be able to see into their own future.

A nod came from Marth, and Shulk darted away from the other two and began to rather recklessly lunge towards Grima. At the same time, Ike cast Pyre as quietly as he could and Marth cast Strike, making the white fire into some sort of blazing white-gold arrow shooting straight toward him.

A lazy deflection from Grima's lightning sword sent the Pyre scattering across the room like a pale gold firework. "You underestimate me," Grima scoffed as he caught Shulk in a dark spell. "I will not fall for the same trick twice. Was that your strategy, Knight of Sky?"

Marth looked pained, saying more clearly than words ever could that his only plan had just failed.

"You have lost. I promise it will be painless, for the most part," Grima stated coldly, Shulk dropping to the ground after his spell dissipated.

"I have no intention of giving up, even if one strategy fails," Marth rebutted. "Nova!" he cried, pointing his blade towards Grima. A small explosion went off at Grima's feet, knocking him back.

Lucina noticed then that Ness was no longer with their group, which should have been a signal that perhaps Marth's strategy was not only to attempt to heal their foe. Lucina located him beside the blonde girl in the pink dress he had attempted to awaken earlier. She edged closer to them, as she could barely hear Ness saying something.

"Jumpstart!" Ness cried over and over, more tears hitting the ground with every current rushing into the girl that did nothing. "Please, Paula, just wake up!"

He held her wrist and after a moment collapsed on the ground in a puddle of anguished tears. "No, please, just wake up!" he begged in a pained scream. Even Grima turned towards the Knight of Electricity as he sent up a prayer for his friend. "God, just please don't let her be dead, please!" he pleaded tearfully.

"She was one of the few to not survive the extraction," Grima explained coolly. "She had an awful lot of energy, but she didn't quite make it. I'd been meaning to find a place to dispose of her, but I haven't quite found a good place for it."

Ness suddenly let go of the hand of his friend's corpse and stood up, turning towards the cloaked Celestial Guardian. "Monster!" Ness sobbed. "No one move, he's mine!"

* * *

_**AN- Do you see why I changed the rating? I mean, I know we never really knew Paula, but still, two character deaths and a bit of violence is probably worthy of a T rating. Also, forgive me if Shulk is a bit OOC. I'm doing a bit of reconnaissance on him (aka watching a Let's Play of Xenoblade Chronicles) as we speak, but I still have no clue if I messed up a few things. If so, I'll work on fixing it in later chapters. **_

_**So, chapterly question! Favorite non-Alchemist Knight character? I like Shulk (and Nah) a lot, but we haven't met the one that's probably my favorite yet. Only hint you get is that the character is from a series that has been represented as of now. :P**_

_**So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	22. Gaiden 5- Collapse

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Gaiden_

_Story Five- Pit- Collapse_

Once upon a time, long before he'd known of the Knights he would be irreversibly tangled up with, Pit had every intention to be a soldier in the Observatory Militia. This had always been his dream, for the entirety of his memory. It had stood beside him as long and as certainly as Palutena and Viridi, who had been his best friends so long he'd forgotten how he came to know them.

They'd always stood by him, even when he did horribly stupid things. They were the best kind of friends, the ones that would never make him face something alone, even if it was his fault. Of course, this shattered when he messed up so majorly that nothing remained of their friendship afterward, save for the broken memories he held close to him.

The day his entire life collapsed, the Observatory was under attack. This wasn't unusual; after all, a town that floated through the cosmos was bound to end up in unfriendly territory on occasion. The Observatory Militia was made exactly for that purpose, as were the disaster shelters in every single structure in the city. Pit always loved watching out of the mile-thick windows to see the incredible fighting of the brave soldiers that he wanted to join someday. However, on that particular day, he wasn't in awe of their skills so much as he was antsy and irritated that he was stuck inside while they were protecting the city and actually doing something.

And then The Idea hit, the one he'd regret for the rest of his life. Waiting for a good minute when everyone else was distracted by the spectacle outside, he leaned over to his friends and whispered his horrible idea. "Hey, what d'ya say we go outside and help fight those stupid Aulums?" he suggested it, not knowing what it would bring about.

"Aurum," corrected Viridi.

"Yeah, whatever. Let's go!"

Palutena looked out of the window uneasily. "Pit, I don't think that's a good idea," she advised.

Looking back, Pit wished so much he would have just accepted her rejection and sat in that room, still aching for action, but whole. Instead, he protested. "Oh, come on! It'll be fun, and we'll be heroes! Just think, we'll fight off the invaders awesomely and-"

"Get expelled," Finished Viridi. "Pit, I agree with Palutena on this. That ranks up there with Floor Ice Cream on your list of awful ideas."

"Now, Viridi, I think we can all agree that Floor Ice Cream wasn't that bad," Palutena chided. "However, going outside to fight is. There are so many ways we could get killed out there, and with only three of us, we'd probably end up splattered on the walls in seven different ways each."

Pit looked outside to see a dark-clad man with an enormous sword cut one of the odd silver and green creatures in two and made the worst decision he would ever make. "Okay then, I'll go!" he proclaimed. "You two have fun watching me!"

With a quick glance to make sure no one was looking, he crept to the door leading out of the safe room and swung it open quickly. It barely made a noise, so he thought surely no one would have noticed he had left. He dashed through the halls to his locker and got out the bow he used for combat practice. With a smile, he started to the door, nothing but adrenaline pounding through his veins. The call of "Pit, wait!" that came from behind him made him jump, but his face quickly changed to bear a smile.

"Awesome, you're coming, then?" he asked Palutena as he turned to face her. He saw Viridi was following closely behind, out of breath as she tried to keep up with the green-haired girl.

"Please, just come back to the room," pleaded Palutena.

"If you go out there, those Aurum will be having barbequed angel for dinner tonight," added Viridi.

Why couldn't he have listened to reason? If only he had followed them back into the room then, Pit's world would have remained stable and intact. Instead, he dashed forward and thrust open the doors. As he ran through them, he heard a sigh from Palutena and a hiss from Viridi.

"You know we're not going to let you die alone out there, right?" Viridi asked with an insincere smile that Pit could hear in her voice.

He gave one of joy as he turned back around. "Of course!" he cried. "We'll be awesome together! Palutena, d'you have your staff?"

Giving a small twirl of the blue-tipped staff Palutena used to perform her Light Magic spells, she nodded with a frown. "Are you sure we can't talk you out of this?" she asked desperately.

"Nope!" Pit cheerily stated. Now, he wondered why he'd ignored his friends' warnings and misgivings. He must have known what a bad idea it was, right?

But as he stepped out into the battlefield that day, he'd never felt more alive as he spread out his wings and soared into the fray. Pulling back the bowstring, he shot an arrow of light right into one of the odd invading creatures. It stumbled a bit and fell after two more rapid-fire shots into his foe.

Pit honestly didn't remember that much of the fight until one of the soldiers had noticed him. A young woman in blue shot a bolt of electricity into a triangular monster he was fighting and looked at him oddly. "You look a bit young to be here," she stated, irritation pulling at her vocal chords.

"He is," cried Viridi, who was watching Pit from the ground and shooting some thorn-covered vines at some of the Aurum.

The woman narrowed her gaze. "Shouldn't you be in the school?" she questioned.

Pit responded by shooting down another Aurum. "But I'm helping!" he protested.

The woman's gaze was caught by a gold sphere with odd silver rings and circles surrounding it. "You kids get back inside," she ordered. "It's dangerous, but don't worry! I can handle this."

That was his last chance to turn back. Why he didn't take it, he'd never know. He only knew that as the woman hovered to the sphere, he followed, wings beating through the air more effortlessly than he'd even know them to again. Letting a shot from his bow fly towards the odd device, he heard a simple "plink" as it bounced off of it harmlessly.

As the electric mage shot him a look of pure rage, she sent a thick current through the air towards the device. It seemed to evaporate as it hit it, leaving it unharmed. Another bolt of energy hit the woman, knocking her down. Palutena rushed to her side and relivedly cried "She's still breathing."

Viridi's musing mutter of "It seems to be inorganic, so if something could get through that armor…" came soon after.

"My Heavenly Light spell could do something!" Palutena exclaimed. "Viridi, wrap it up in your vines. Pit, distract it," she ordered.

With a nod, Pit ducked in front of it. He thought Palutena's plan was great; surely nothing could go wrong with something so simple, right? Viridi sent some vines to wrap up the core, and for a glorious moment, it seemed to have worked. But as Palutena cried "Heavenly Light!", the device sent some beam towards her, trapping her. The cry of pain she let out as it seemed to drain her energy still haunted Pit's dreams even to this day. He flew up to try to help her, but the device then let out a beam of pure energy that came crashing at them.

Everything came crashing around him after that, his world black and still. Until he woke up in the infirmary a week later, he'd apparently been thought to be a hopeless case, as the doctors told him later. Someone told him he was lucky to have survived, that almost everything but his wings would make a full recovery, that he wouldn't be able to fly on his own without a dose of flight magic, but even then only in short bursts. He thought that knowledge would be what would break him. Of course, that was the kindest pain he'd suffer.

He asked about Palutena and the others. The doctors uneasily told him that Viridi and the other woman, apparently a commander named Phosphora were unharmed, and quickly told him that the Aurum Brain they'd fought had been taken care of and the Observatory was safe. Pit knew even then there was something they weren't telling him, and something in his gut knew exactly what it was. It wasn't confirmed until he was strong enough to look to his left, to the hospital bed next to his.

The green-haired girl he'd known for all his life, his closest friend, the person he'd tried to save at the last minute, she was unconscious with all manners of IV bags hooked up to her and an oxygen mask on her face. The scare pulse displayed on the cardiac monitor beside her bed made his heart fall and his eyes fill with tears. The doctors told him she was surely in a coma and would likely never awaken from it. She was on life support, but even they wouldn't be able to sustain her, they said.

It was his fault. Palutena was as good as dead, as were his dreams of ever being a soldier, and it was completely his fault, no matter how he looked at it. When Viridi visited later that day, though she never said a word of it, there seemed to be some unspoken agreement between them that this awful fault of Pit's was too great to forgive and he shouldn't expect to ever speak to her again. There was no "Take care", "Best wishes," or even "Goodbye," at the end of their friendship. The only farewell he got was the shattered air he'd have to learn to live with.

All his hopes crushed, as soon as he was well enough to leave the hospital, he went to the only place he could think of to go: Lady Rosalina's palace. She was kind and merciful, and more importantly, could surely give Pit some job to do so he wouldn't be a useless flightless angel for much longer. As he walked through the long corridor leading to her study, he could have sworn he saw a flicker of blue and red out of the corner of his eye. It took only one knock on the door for Lady Rosalina to swing it open. "Ah, Pit," she greeted plainly. "I've been expecting you."

"You have?" he asked, taking a seat in a red cushioned chair the ruler of his world had motioned to.

She gave an odd smile. "Yes, of course. I presume you're inquiring about your future?" she prompted.

"Yeah," Pit told. "I mean, I know I messed up, but I want to still help the Observatory somehow. Please, I'll be a servant, I'll pick up trash, I'll do anything! Please," he pleaded. "Just let me help!"

"There is a place that the broken, the ones that couldn't help anywhere else go," began Lady Rosalina. "You see, there is a special task force of mine, a private army, so to say. There are only three members as of now: a man that was once a high-ranking member of an army that is all but extinct, a young knight of that same army that has no where else to receive training for his special skills, and a young man that is around your age, perhaps a bit older. I think a flightless angel that was too eager to protect his homeland would fit in nicely with them."

Pit could hardly believe her offer. "Really? I mean, I got my best friend killed. Wouldn't I just mess up again?"

"Perhaps," she stated. "But perhaps you will become someone brilliant. We'll never know unless we run that risk, will we?"

The grateful tears of joy that filled Pit's eyes as Lady Rosalina beckoned him to follow her to the quarters of her "Special Task Force" clouded his vision, but he still thanked her profusely with every step they took. Swinging open the doors to a rather small space, Pit got his first glance of the place he'd proceed to spend the better part of the next several years of his life. One side of the room was a cluttered mess of papers, tools, and scraps, while the other seemed to be a simple space meant for training, with a sandbag that looked as if it'd been hopelessly abused slouched in one corner. A smile filled Pit's face as he took it in.

A door to the side opened and a young man with blond hair and an odd red blade strapped to his back entered the room. Taking one look at Pit, he chuckled. "Pit, isn't it?" he prompted.

Nodding, Pit asked Rosalina "Hey, did you tell him about me?"

The queen and the blond boy exchanged a small mutual laugh. "You see," explained Rosalina. "Shulk has the power of foresight, meaning he often knows what is going to happen before it does."

"Yeah," Shulk added. "I've been seeing you for ages. Nice to finally meet you in the present!"

He held out his hand, and Pit shook it happily. "Wow, that's so cool!" he exclaimed. "How far can you see? Can you make it happen or does it just sort of happen? Can you see my future? What number am I thinking of?"

Shulk looked down and gave an uneasy sigh. "I-I'm not psychic!" he quickly assured Pit. "And I can't see anyone's future but my own. Can't make it happen either, it just happens sometimes. I usually see things that will happen soon, but sometimes I see things weeks, months, or even years in advance!"

As Pit proceeded to gush over his new partner's abilities, another door opened, a small masked creature coming out of it. Pit recognized the warrior at once. "Whoa, you're Meta Knight, aren't you?" Pit asked, though he already knew the answer.

Meta Knight sighed in exasperation. "Yes. Are you a new recruit?" he asked gruffly.

"I think so?" Pit answered questioningly. Shulk gave a nod of confirmation. "Well, I mean, yeah, totally!"

The Knight groaned. "Lovely. You can read Kirby bedtime stories; God knows I don't have time for it."

Another small creature came out of the door, this one smaller and pinker, without any armor to speak of. "I heard 'new person'!" he exclaimed in a shrill voice. "Yay! I love new people! I'm Kirby, and I wanna be friends!" he declared as he gave Pit's leg a tight hug.

The rest of the day was spent with Pit making himself at home in this new place, and Shulk and Kirby gladly showed him every last corner of their quarters, Shulk being sure to tell him not to mess with his stuff, better known as the giant mess of a workspace that ate up most of several of their rooms. Pit still felt awkward there, as if he didn't deserve to be there. Meta Knight was a well known legendary Star Warrior, one of the last survivors of their kind, and from the looks of it, so was Kirby. And Shulk, of course, could see the future. How he ever compare to them when they weren't as incompetent as him?

He got his answer when the clock's hands were indicating the lateness of the hour and Kirby asked Shulk and Pit to read him a bedtime story. They agreed, but Shulk froze up when Kirby showed the book he wanted read.

"Er, can't we choose another book?" Shulk pleaded with a nervous grimace.

Kirby's eyes shined with begging sadness. "But I like this book!" the young knight exclaimed.

Shulk responded by throwing the book across the room. "This book is not appropriate for children!" he declared as it hit a bookshelf. "It contains graphic and frightening imagery."

Pit picked the book up and was immediately confused. "It's just some picture book about a caterpillar!" Pit defended.

"Exactly," Shulk stated.

"What, are you scared of caterpillars of something?" Pit asked with a snicker.

With an awkward half-laugh half-sigh, Shulk nodded. "It's a long story."

Pit proceeded to make fun of him about it not only for the rest of the night, but for the rest of their friendship. Of course, Shulk was quick to find out Pit's aversion to eggplants, so they were mostly even. Pit would grow to love his new friends and surroundings, and even his job, even if it was usually a glorified title of assistant. However, once the Star Eaters came around, it became a lot more interesting.

Shortly after the Star Eaters started to loom over Lady Rosalina, Palutena's life support finally gave out. At her funeral, his new friends stood beside him, and even though they'd never known her in life, they shared in his tears. (Or at least Shulk and Kirby did, considering Meta Knight was never known to give so much as the slightest smile or frown beneath his mask.) Viridi didn't so much as speak to him, but he felt on that day almost as if his past could finally be put behind him, with Palutena truly at rest and Viridi gone forever.

And though he'd always look back on the day he'd caused the total collapse of his life, and he'd always regret it, he'd learned to accept it. After all, without it, he'd never have known how far he could soar at the Starstorm Knights' side.

* * *

_**AN- Surprise! To interrupt your regularly scheduled epic-type battle, have some depressing backstory! I just figured I needed to explain the Starstorm Knights better, and the story I cooked up for Pit was too sad for me not to share with you. I totally planned for this to happen after next chapter, but I didn't want to wait. Anyways, I took a few liberties with the workings of Shulk's visions, but I sort of liked the idea of him being able to see both the near and distant future. Also, new longest chapter!**_

_**So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	23. Change

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Eighteen- Change_

Ike and Marth froze as Ness charged towards Grima, his baseball bat reared back. Turning towards the Knight of Electricity, Grima whipped a green-covered tome out of his cloak and sent several blades of wind hurdling towards him, which simply ricocheted off of the bat.

A few feet away from the Celestial Guardian, the barely conscious Shulk began to stir, sliding a small notebook across the ground with a flick of his hand. The short pink Starstorm Knight dashed across the cold, hard floor to retrieve it, Grima being too preoccupied with sending wind spells at Ness to notice. He handed the notebook to Pit, who flipped through its pages desperately. Letting out a victorious "Ah-ha!" as he pointed to one of the pages, he cried out to Ness "Try using 'Thunder'!"

"Thunder!" Ness roared, a trailing ball of electricity shooting from him. It was deflected by its target with a lazy wave of his sword.

Grima laughed. "You think it possible to defeat me by yourself?" he taunted. "It would be impossible to defeat me with all of you combined. I'll gladly stand down if you abide to my request, though."

With an uneasy look down, Marth muttered "Perhaps it would be best to submit. It would surely save bloodshed."

"N-no! You can't!" Ike cried desperately. "If anything happens to you… Well, you know, you have a lot of people that would be sad."

"The same can be said of any of us," Marth challenged.

Suddenly, Roy sighed and drew his blade. "I can't take this anymore! Sorry Marth, but I can't just stand back and let you do this."

Lucina followed as her friend lunged into the battlefield. "There may not be much I can do," she admitted sadly. "But I'll do whatever I can to stop him!"

Pit's voice rang out in a laugh. "Yeah, Starstorm Knights, let's show him who's boss!"

Shakily pushing himself to his feet, Shulk pointed his weapon at Grima, which whirred to life, the hole in it shining blue. As the Celestial Guardian was focused on all of the Knights charging towards him, he didn't notice Shulk was behind him until he let out a cry of "Backslash!" knocking the cloaked man forward with a strike from his weapon.

"Bind!" Roy cried, and ice began to sprout around Grima's hands and feet, trying to chain his limbs together.

Struggling, Grima reached for a red tome in his cloak. His lips moved silently as he desperately scanned one of the pages and Pit sent a volley of arrows at him. Fire started to form in his hands, melting Roy's bindings away. However, the blue masked knight fluttered with bat-like wings and drove his blade into Grima.

The crystal in the heart of the room began to shimmer violently and Grima laughed. Pulling a purple tome marked with a triangular symbol out, he cried "Goetia!" and violet lightning began to strike the Knights violently.

As a dark current ran through her, Lucina felt a sinking sense of despair as she collapsed, cutting her as deeply as the agony the attack itself brought. "This is hopeless," despaired a voice, perhaps her own. "We're not strong enough."

Ness called "Magnet!" from somewhere in the distance, but the scream that came soon after confirmed that the lightning plaguing the Knights was not electrical, nor was it anything Ness could absorb. Lucina thought she heard footsteps, but the dark lightning bound her to the ground, unable to find its source.

"Now, Knight of Sky, I will make this as painless as possible," echoed Grima's voice. Lucina struggled against the dark spell, but the pain bearing into her made it impossible to move or even to cry out.

"Nosferatu!" called out another voice, one painfully familiar and strangely close. As the agony of the spell receded, Lucina was able to get to her feet and see the woman that would one day be her mother draining the dark energy out of Grima. The cloaked Celestial Guardian hissed in pain as he struggled to escape the force field she had trapped him in. Robin, however, soon collapsed, her eyes dark with the strain of absorbing the dark spell.

With a glance around, Lucina could see the others were in no shape to fight. Or, at least, the ones who were present: the Starstorm Knights had all but vanished. The only hint that they had ever been there at all was a small notebook left on the ground, the very same Shulk had given Pit a few moments ago. As Ike attempted to drag a barely conscious Marth away from Grima, who was on the ground, attempting to recover from Robin's strike, Roy picked up the notebook before muttering "Bind", causing more ice chains to form around Grima's limbs.

Chrom dashed into the room, brandishing a sword and looking like the hero Lucina had always imagined him to be. "What happened?" he asked. "I heard shouting, and Robin ran ahead-"

Noticing the woman he would one day wed laying on the ground, he quickly ran to her. "P-please, get these children away from here and leave while you still can," she muttered. "I'll try to hold this man back."

Chrom prepared to run blade through Grima, who was struggling to get up. "No need to get selfless on me, I can kill him," he returned with a smug grin. Lucina stifled a laugh; it was easy to see how these two would eventually marry.

A dark laugh came from a corner of the room. "Fool, you think me stupid enough to use my own body for that?" cackled a voice unfamiliar to Lucina, but one that Roy obviously seemed to recognize, judging by the horrified expression on his face. Another cloaked figure came out of the shadows, one that looked identical to the man chained on the ground in all but stature.

The man they'd been fighting hadn't been Grima, then, but another puppet like Roy? Lucina recoiled in horror. Was this Grima even the true one? Most likely, judging by the Roy's recognition of him.

"Lissa!" called Chrom to the other side of the room. "Get these kids out of here, then we'll get Maribelle and Ricken!"

A white circle formed beneath Lucina and Roy, and white engulfed Lucina's vision. When it cleared, the warehouse room had been replaced with the overgrown exterior of the building. A flash beside them showed Ike and Marth had materialized next to them, and a third flash revealed Ness.

Lucina sat down on the hillside they'd ended up on and looked at the sky, which had began to turn to dusk.

"Will your parents be alright?" Marth asked concernedly.

Lucina nodded. "Surely. I mean, they died after Morgan was born, and they look far too young to have had children yet."

"Are you alright?" Ike followed. "I mean, you just saw your parents and-"

Sighing, Lucina looked into the sky. "I'm not sure, really. I want to cry, but at the same time, I'm glad I got to meet them."

The notebook Shulk had dropped was shoved into her hands by Roy. "Can you read this?" Roy asked, pointing at a block of incredibly sloppy handwriting.

Squinting, Lucina attempted to decode it. After so many years spent trying to figure out what Morgan had wrote, she was fairly experienced in reading chicken-scratch like the note in front of her.

"'Alchemist Knights'," she read. "'Sorry if we left without warning. Rosalina probably pulled us out because she thought we were in danger, but don't worry about us. Anyways, I meant to give this to you, so hopefully you managed to find it. It's my notes on the cores and their powers. Figured it would be helpful to you. And if there's anything weird written in here, don't mind it. I probably just needed to write something down and this was the most convenient place to do so. Good luck, hope to see you soon. –Shulk'"

"Great, now we'll actually have a clue as to what the heck we're doing," Roy exclaimed, his weariness canceling out any happiness in it.

An indistinct voice Lucina half recognized rang out from near the hole burned into the side of the building. Looking down, Lucina saw a young man with bright red hair, accompanied by a woman with a green ponytail and a violet-haired man. A small gasp came from her. She had heard the name Grima, and while she had recognized it, she hadn't made the connection with the story she'd grown up hearing. It didn't surprise her much to see her adopted mother and her dear friends, though, considering what Lyn had said the previous night.

"Looks like that story was true all along," Roy remarked, some distant edge in his voice. "I guess my mother was one of the people in there, then." The boy gave a bitter laugh. "Funny, I was so close to her, but I didn't feel a thing."

"We were preoccupied, don't blame yourself," Lucina reassured her friend, resting a hand on his shoulder.

"I guess we know how this story ends, though," Roy added. "It kind of surprises me, though. All of that power; Grima couldn't fall that easily, right?"

"He probably just warped away like Circe," Lucina suggested. "Your father just probably thought it was a better ending if the beast was felled and everyone lived happily ever after."

A still, silent moment followed, broken by Marth. "I wonder who Grima was. Before he became corrupted, I mean. I feel as if I know him somehow, but I can't quite place the feeling," the prince confessed. "The feeling seemed to be mutual, at very least, if his behavior towards me is any indicate."

Lucina gave Shulk's notebook another glance, but Ike snatched it out of her hands very violently and began to flip through it. "Okay, here's the part about Time Travel. Hey, Lucina, can you see if it says anything about how much we can mess with time?"

Scanning the page, Lucina only saw a brief note on the subject. "Probably shouldn't mess time too much; don't know what will happen," Shulk had written.

"Just that he doesn't know so we should be careful," Lucina explained. "Why do you ask?"

While she was almost sure he wanted to ask whether or not a relationship with someone from a different time period was possible, Ike instead said something she herself had been trying very hard not to think of since gaining this power. "Since your parents died, you could go back in time and save them, right?" he suggested.

"Is that even possible?" Lucina questioned out loud. She tried to picture it, her life with proper parents. What would that affect? Her friends? Her personality? And Morgan, what would he think? He'd surely tell her to do it, but was that even the right thing? Reviving two people that should be dead, should that power be possessed by anyone? Would her parents want her to save them, or were they content in heaven, watching their children from afar?

"That's ridiculous, of course she couldn't," Roy snorted with forced scorn. It burned Lucina just a bit, but she knew he was trying to stop her from doing something reckless. "It says not to mess with it, not to change the entirety of reality."

"How would saving two people change 'the entirety of reality'?" Ike countered, far too defensive for a cause that was not his own.

"Just think, not only would Lucina's life be completely different, but so would everyone she and her brother have ever had contact with! She might not even be an Alchemist Knight, and who knows what that would affect!" Roy argued.

"But she'd save her parents!" Ike protested. "Isn't saving someone you love important enough to risk it?"

"Please, just stop arguing!" Lucina cried. "You two are making this harder for me than it needs to be. I don't know what I should do, or if I should do anything, and you two screaming at each other isn't going to help anything!"

She felt a hand on her shoulder: Marth's. "I know something like this must be horribly difficult for you," he stated softly. "And I am truly sorry you have fallen into such a difficult situation. However, the fact remains that you have no reason to act on anything at this moment. Give it time, and surely you will know the right path to take."

Tears filling her eyes, Lucina nodded. "Thank you," she breathlessly sobbed. Staring at the setting sun once more, she thought she heard a loud boom coming from the building. Judging from the way Roy leaned towards the building and strained his eyes, it was certainly not her imagination.

Very suddenly, a loud crash came from the building, followed by a blue-green creature bursting through the roof. It appeared to be some sort of dragon, and a dark cloaked figure was held in its claws, most likely Grima. The Celestial Guardian vanished rather suddenly, and the dragon looked confused for a moment before landing on the roof and being enveloped in a bright light. A young woman emerged from the light, one which Lucina felt as if she should recognize. The astonished sputtering coming from Roy explained it perfectly.

"My mother, it must have been…" muttered Roy. "But how-?"

"I had no clue your mother was a Manakete," Marth remarked.

A gap of silence came. "Nor did I," Lucina added, trying to buy her friend time to comprehend what had just happened.

Finally, the gears in Roy's head seemed to begin to turn again. "Does that mean- am I-?"

"I would imagine so," Marth stated. "My dear friend Tiki told me that Manakete blood passes down to part-Manaketes as well."

Something hit Lucina in that instant, something she sincerely hoped would not hit Roy any time soon. When her brother had developed a crush on Nah, Lyn had warned that her Manakete blood would mean she was sure to outlive him by millennia. Was her friend cursed to such a great lifespan as well?

* * *

_**AN- Well, that happened. Just warning you, next chapter will be a bit boring, but I'll try to make up for it somehow. Also, there's a new prologue to the story as part of chapter one, so go check that out! It will only make everyone more confused, but it's cool!**_

_**So, chapterly question! Pretty much every main character in this story has a very depressing existence in one way or another, so which one do you think is the most depressing. So far, I'll have to go with Roy or Pit, but trust me, we haven't seen the half of our heroes' misery yet.**_

_**So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


	24. Tiki

_Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina_

_Chapter Nineteen- Tiki_

It was agreed upon wordlessly that Ness would stay behind and the rest of the Alchemist Knights would return to the time all of them originated from, save for Marth. He did not voice his objection to this. Roy and Lucina had been through far too much to allow him to selfishly ask them to continue with their quest and put aside their own inner demons.

Marth knew he would not be happy there, in a place with such foreign technology and unfamiliar air. He did not say a word of it. Not when they decided to stay a week to allow for the return of an expert of Manakete biology and lineage that had been away, and certainly not when Ike asked if he was alright with staying there. With a false smile, he assured him it would be no bother.

Secretly, he wanted nothing more than to leave. To go home and see his dear friends and the people he'd pledged his life to protect. Or better yet, he wanted to spread the wings of light that appeared when he cast Lodestar and find some place even more foreign than the one he was trapped in. At least there, he would be doing something useful rather than sitting in the bedroom Lucina had insisted he stay in and attempt to decipher the notes Shulk had left them. That was out of the question, though. He would never do such a thing to his partners, who needed the time to rest after the Grima incident.

That event haunted him just as it did his partners, but in a much different way. Part of it was the grief Ness had expressed over the passing of his friend. That was another reason Marth did not protest about staying put for a week: the working of the time-travel seemed to be that the time that passed while absent from a realm was the same amount of time that would have passed upon the travelers' returning to that realm. However, it was the man they had faced that truly preyed on his mind.

Marth had recognized him, in a way he did not quite comprehend. _Déjà Vu_, it was called, was it not? That strange sense that an occurrence was not isolated, despite being unable to place just where it had occurred before. That was the only way to explain what he had felt around the cloaked monster. Some small part of him almost wished Grima had succeeded in invading his mind. If he was truly only trying to understand him better, then perhaps it would have helped him understand why he felt familiar.

The majority of him was glad that he was far away from that monster. Kidnapping and killing innocent people for the sole purpose of gaining power, he reminded Marth of the awful dictators he had been taught about in his lessons, the kind he had at one point in his life stayed asleep at night crying and praying he wouldn't become. He was glad he had matured past that. So many people believed he would one day become a good king, surely the faith of so many was unwarranted. He always tried to do as much good as he could in Altea, protecting the defenseless and always being warm and charitable. The citizens loved him for it, and he loved making so many people smile. That was both why he had hesitated to become and agreed to be an Alchemist Knight. Yes, he was leaving the people he protected, but he was also protecting other people by accepting this task.

The core of why the week was an unbearable torture was just that. No one benefited from him being there, save for the other Alchemist Knights, who were wholly occupied with some manner of exams. The only thing left for him to do was learn how to use the quill-like pens of this realm and make sense of Shulk's notes, which ranged from extremely useful to wholly unnerving. The majority of it was notes on the cores' powers and their workings, but hints of it digressed into bone-chilling notes that only reminded Marth of the awful power the boy had claimed to possess.

Notes on visions of the future dotted the book, written in pages in the back of the book that were otherwise untouched. A few of them seemed benign. For instance, he had noted that "Pit should be going on a field mission to find the Alchemist Knights whenever Luma fails. Remind him to mention Purity Spells." and a few scattered notes about insignificant future events. However, a few notes were rather frightening.

"That girl Pit talks about sometimes, can't remember her name, but something bad's going to happen to her," he'd written, the most benign of the horrifying ones. Another note was "Someone's going to die. Can't tell who it was, but there was blood and someone (Pit, I think) was crying," which was perfectly chilling itself, but worsened in tandem with the prior one.

The most haunting of all was not merely a few sentences, but a drawing with a quick note written under it. It was a simple sketch of a two people Marth did not recognize: a girl with a cold look in her eyes and a boy who looked almost inhuman, with artificial looking features and rather unnatural looking pupils. Shulk's annotation was fairly clear to see, but it still was still chilling. "Definitely something wrong with these two," the boy had written. "The girl spoke this time, absolutely no trace of emotion whatsoever. The boy doesn't even seem to be alive, to the point where I seriously doubt his existence is natural." Why this was the one that unnerved him the most, Marth did not know, but he only hoped whoever these two people were, his path wouldn't cross with theirs.

Thinking on it, Marth almost pitied Shulk's power. It must be so awful to see what will come to pass, to be haunted with horrible sights without any control to stop it. He had wanted to ask him more about these abilities of his, but the Starstorm Knights had vanished too quickly to allow for it. Marth was sure their paths would cross again, though, if the teal light in Lucina's pocket was any indicate. He had noticed it during the battle, but wasn't able to mention it at the time. Considering it ceased to glow after they had left, Marth was sure it was meant for one of them. Which of them, he couldn't say, but he hoped somewhat it was Shulk. After all, working closely with him would give Marth a chance to try to ease the pain the boy must feel.

But he had to ask himself, why did feel a twinge of guilt when thinking of the seer?

* * *

The past week of his life had easily been the worst Roy had ever lived. Yes, it was Finals week, which was always agonizing, but waiting for the Manakete woman Nah had said would be the only one able to tell him how his own Manakete blood affected him was purely torturous. Ever since he saw a dragon transforming back into his mother, his mind had been consistently asking one question: "How did I not know about this before?"

This is what he asked his father, who simply stated that he didn't want to worry Roy with the possibility of outliving his friends. He had no clue whether or not it would even effect him, considering his mother had only been half-Manakete.

As much as Roy wanted to be upset with his father for withholding this from him for so long, he couldn't bring himself to disagree with his thinking. So, he had to accept that whatever the woman he was to meet said, it wasn't anything he could blame on his parents. If he was going to outlive his father and friends by thousands of years, which was nauseating just to think of, it was something he was going to have to accept.

Whenever Friday came, the minutes seemed to drag until it was finally about the time he'd been told to visit the Manakete woman. Bidding his father a hasty farewell, he made his way to the house where he'd been told the woman lived. Seeing it was almost dream-like, even though it seemed horribly ordinary. Uneasily approaching the door, a voice called from behind him.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" rang out a voice he barely recognized at first, before placing it as Ike's. Roy knew it shouldn't have surprised him the other Alchemist Knights had come as well, but he still wished that he had the courage to ask them to let him do this alone.

Any desires of solitude faded away with a gentle hand placed on his shoulder. "No matter what happens, we'll be there for you, alright?" Lucina murmured, as if she was trying to kill all of his fear with her kindness.

A small smile found its way on Roy's lips, despite his nerves. "I know," he whispered back.

With a few hasty steps forwards, Roy rapped on the cherry-red door. A young woman bearing a ashy green ponytail swiftly opened it with a kindly smile. "You are here to learn about your heritage, correct?" she inquired, her voice sounding far too strained and wizened to belong to someone so young. He knew at once that she must be millennia older than she looked, and a sudden chill ran down his spine with the realization that perhaps he might be like that in the future.

He gave a nod in reply, words failing him. She began to usher him and the rest of the Alchemist Knights in, but her breath caught upon laying her deadened eyes on Marth.

"It can't be," the Manakete muttered. After a pained moment, she shook her head. "Surely not. I apologize, you just look like an old friend of mine."

"Is that so?" Marth replied, recognition clearly flickering in his eyes.

"Do not concern yourself with it: that man died a thousand years ago," sighed the woman. Roy could almost feel the amusement bouncing between them. Marth had mentioned knowing a Manakete, so that Manakete must be this woman. However, much to his surprise, Marth did not say a word of it.

"How very odd," mused the prince. "My name is S-Shulk," he forced out. "Shulk L-Lowell." Shulk, wasn't that the name of one of the Starstorm Knights? Roy wondered absently why Marth would choose him as a pseudonym, but more so why Marth would use a pseudonym in the first place.

Looking saddened for a brief moment, the Manakete woman gave a polite bow. "I am Tiki. It is very nice to make your acquaintance." Tiki turned to Roy and gestured to a chair in her sitting room, which was fairly neat, despite the piles of odd items and books scattered throughout it. "Please, Mr. Pherae, right? Take a seat and we can talk."

Roy sat down, not daring to ask how she knew his name. Tiki sat opposite him and cast a glance towards the other Alchemist Knights. "You don't mind your friends being here, do you?" she asked.

"We're here for moral support," Lucina replied, placing her hand on Roy's shoulder once more. He wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed by her sudden overbearingly protective attitude or grateful for her support.

"Well then," began Tiki. "From what Miss Iris told me, you just recently learned your late mother was at least part Manakete, correct?"

Roy wondered for a minute who "Miss Iris" was before realizing it must have been Nah, who had referred them to Tiki. That would explain why she knew his name as well. "Yes," Roy replied as calmly as he could. "She was half Manakete, her mother's side," he added, wondering if it was necessary.

With a sad nod, Tiki got up from her chair and grabbed a glimmering stone, coated with a thin layer of dust from one of her shelves. Handing the stone to Roy, she began to explain. "This is a Dragonstone, the device which Manaketes use to transform into dragons. If you inherited the gene from your mother, which is the most likely scenario, you will have approximately half the lifespan of a normal Manakete: approximately seven and a half to ten thousand years."

"O-of life?" he exclaimed suddenly. Tiki gave a sad nod, and Roy felt the room begin to spin around him. "How can I tell if I 'inherited the gene'?" Roy questioned, though he knew the answer was in his hand.

"If you did, you should be able to activate the stone and transform," Tiki stated. "If you'd like, we could go outside so you can test it. Either way, you're welcome to have that one; it's an extra I keep around for young Manaketes."

The stone glowed with warmth, and he knew at once that he could activate it if he wanted to. It was confirming his fears wordlessly, and it terrified him. As the room spun around him, he shoved the stone into his pocket and almost ran to the front door. "Thank you," he spat out. "But we really must be going."

Shoving the door open, he fell to the ground, losing his balance as the door opened. He felt sick, but he pushed himself to the ground without a word. Though he was vaguely aware of someone asking if he was okay, he slammed the door shut as the last of them exited it. "Lucina, Marth, Ike, let's go save the world more or something," he cried.

Fishing the Blood and Plant cores, as Shulk's notebook had called them, out of her pocket, Lucina nodded. "We know the Air core is one of the Starstorm Knights, so we don't need to worry about them. There are four others as well, but the most important thing right now is to gather the rest of the ones we've already found."

Marth took the Blood core from her and called "Sky!", his attire melting into his Alchemist Knight garb. He followed with a shout of "Lodestar!" and the world around them melted into golden light.

* * *

_**AN- Yes, this was a strange chapter, and yes, this was kind of filler, but I needed to get that Finals week thing out of the way, and I wanted Marth to have a POV as well. Ike's will come soon enough, don't worry. But hey, next chapter we'll get to see Red and Peach again. That's fun, right? Right? RIGHT? But hey, we're almost at fifty reviews, which means the fiftieth revier gets to ask questions about the story, even spoiler-y ones! But if they're too spoiler-y, I might give a dodgy answer, considering a lot more has been revealed about the story this time compared to the last time I did this. Also, remember how I said the Starstorm Knights were not Alchemist Knights? Well, I was lying. Sorry! One of them is, but I'm not saying which! (Use logic, though, it's actually pretty obvious.)**_

_**So, chapterly question! What do you think Marth's deal with Shulk and Grima is? I'm just curious what you guys think, 'cause there's definitely something weird going on there. **_

_**So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


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